Divorce Happens

There’s a question that sits quietly in the minds of thousands of people every single day — and this week, one woman had the courage to send it to Olivia’s Instagram DMs: “How do I push past the fear and file against my narcissistic ex? We have a two-year-old.” In this intimate solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell speaks directly to that listener — and to every person navigating the terrifying intersection of narcissistic abuse, co-parenting fears, and the decision to finally leave. This is the episode for anyone who has sat with a racing heart and asked: am I safe to do this?

Olivia unpacks one of the most misunderstood dynamics in high-conflict divorce: that the fear you feel before you file isn’t a sign that you’re weak — it’s evidence that your nervous system has been conditioned by someone who weaponized fear to keep you in place. She addresses the most common concern that holds parents back — the children — and offers a clarifying, research-backed reframe: staying in a toxic dynamic doesn’t protect your kids. It shapes them. A two-year-old’s nervous system is learning what love and conflict look like right now, from the environment you’re living in. Filing for divorce isn’t abandoning your child. In many cases, it’s the most protective thing you can do.

This episode closes with a powerful reminder: you do not have to white-knuckle your way through a narcissistic divorce alone. Building your team — a family law attorney experienced in high-conflict cases, a therapist or divorce coach who understands narcissistic abuse dynamics, and a circle of people who know the truth — is not a luxury. It’s a survival strategy. If you’re in this season right now, this episode will give you something more valuable than advice: it will give you permission to take the first step.

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📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/

What if divorce didn't have to destroy your family — what if it could actually make it better? That's the radical, deeply human premise at the heart of this week's episode of Divorce Happens, and it's brought to life by someone who's lived it, studied it, and built an entire career helping others do it well. Karen McNenny is a 15-year divorce survivor, certified divorce coach, co-parent specialist, parent team expert, and Crucial Conversations trainer. As founder of the Good Divorce Academy, she helps couples navigate the end of their marriage not as adversaries but as partners in protecting their children's future. And now, fresh off the press in May 2026, she's the author of The Good Divorce: How to End Your Marriage Without Ending Your Family — a book Olivia describes as the one she would have handed her own parents when she was ten years old, watching her own family come apart.

The conversation goes deep, fast. Karen reframes divorce not as a failure or a weapon, but as a tool of transformation — a life transition that, when navigated with intention and education, can reduce conflict, protect children, and even leave families with more grace, kindness, and love than they had before.

What lingers long after the episode ends is the quiet power of Karen's closing wisdom: don't stay too long, and find your way to an elegant exit. She reminds listeners navigating divorce recovery that healing is ultimately an inside job — it has nothing to do with whether your co-parent cooperates, and everything to do with the story you choose to keep telling yourself. Her framework for the two-home family, her concept of the compost pile (turning what's gone sour into fertilizer for something new), and her reminder that everything will be okay in the end — and if it's not okay, it's not the end — offer both a roadmap and a lifeline for anyone who thought a good divorce was impossible.

This episode is essential listening for every divorcing parent, divorce-adjacent family member, or professional working with families in transition.

Website - https://www.karenmcnenny.com/

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Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/241964095-the-good-divorce

Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Good-Divorce-Marriage-Without-Ending/dp/1394374267

Bookshop - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-good-divorce-how-to-end-your-marriage-without-ending-your-family-karen-mcnenny/b6ad733ab25c13b2

There's an emotion that lives in a quiet corner of a lot of divorced women — one they haven't said out loud to their therapist, their best friend, or maybe even themselves. And in this solo episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia is naming it directly: relief.

Relief after divorce — or even during it — is one of the most common and least talked-about emotional experiences of divorce recovery. The exhale that finally comes. The shoulders that finally drop. The quiet that feels like peace instead of loneliness. And then, almost in the same breath, the guilt that crashes in right behind it. Because what kind of person feels relieved that their marriage is over? What does that say about you?

Olivia's answer is clear and compassionate: it says you were carrying something very heavy for a very long time. That's it. That's the whole answer.

In this episode, Olivia unpacks why relief is not a confession — not proof that you never loved him, that your marriage meant nothing, or that you're grieving wrong. It's a physiological response. It's your nervous system finally exhaling after years of being on high alert. She also speaks directly to the women who felt relieved and then immediately wondered if that relief meant they should have left sooner — and why that line of thinking deserves a really careful second look.

The most powerful takeaway of this episode might be this: relief and grief are not opposites. They can exist in the exact same moment. You are allowed to exhale and also cry. To feel lighter and also feel the loss. To be glad it's over and still mourn the version of it you always hoped it could be. These are not contradictions. They are the completely human, completely valid emotional reality of ending a marriage.

This one is for every woman who has felt relieved and then felt ashamed of it. You don't have to whisper about this anymore.

In this episode:

• Why relief after divorce is one of the most common — and most shamed — emotions in divorce recovery
• What relief actually tells you about how much you were carrying
• Why feeling relieved doesn't mean you were wrong to stay as long as you did
• How relief and grief can exist at the exact same time — and why that's not a contradiction
• A direct, loving message to the women who feel guilty for finally being able to breathe

🔗 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/

If you're a divorced mom, chances are you're carrying a fear that doesn't have a name but feels like this: Am I ruining my kids?

In this solo episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia gets honest about one of the most universal — and most exhausting — emotional experiences of divorce recovery: mom guilt. Not the logistical kind, but the deep kind. The one that whispers at 2am that your kids are going to end up in therapy because of you. The one that makes you second-guess the hardest decision you've ever made.

Olivia unpacks what the research actually tells us about kids and divorce (spoiler: it's not the divorce that causes lasting harm — it's the conflict), why the way you're handling this matters more than the fact that it happened, and why choosing something real and healthier for yourself and your children is not the decision of a bad mother. It's the decision of a really, really good one.

This episode is a direct, warm, and lovingly honest conversation with every divorced mom who is doing the work, feeling the guilt, and wondering if it's ever going to be enough. It is. You are.

In this episode:

• Why mom guilt after divorce is almost universal — and why it's not telling you the whole truth
• What the research says about kids and divorce vs. kids and conflict
• What your children are actually watching and learning from how you navigate this
• A compassionate reframe for the moms who can't shake the guilt no matter what they do
• Why the decision to leave — as hard and messy as it was — came from love

🔗 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/

Most people walking into a divorce do the same thing: they call a lawyer. It feels like the obvious first move — the responsible one. But according to Jill Kaufman, a licensed therapist, certified divorce coach, certified mediator, and parent educator with decades of experience, hiring an attorney first is one of the most common — and costly — mistakes divorcing people make. Jill is also the founder of Divorce Network Pro; a curated online directory connecting divorcing individuals and the professionals who support them with mission-aligned experts across every discipline: financial specialists, parent educators, mediators, divorce coaches, and more. Every professional in her network shares a common commitment: lower conflict, keep families out of court, and protect children through the process.

In this episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia sits down with Jill for an honest, practical, and deeply compassionate conversation about what divorce support actually looks like when you build the right team around you. Because the emotional piece of divorce? It's 80 percent of the journey.

Jill brings something rare to the divorce conversation: she's not just a professional who helps others through it — she's been through it herself. She knows what it feels like to sit across from your attorney venting about your pain and watching the billable hours tick by. She knows the specific terror of wondering if this will ever end. And she knows that nine months of divorce proceedings can feel like nine years when you're in the middle of it.

What you'll walk away with from this episode is a genuine mindset shift about what divorce support can and should look like — and permission to build a team that matches the full complexity of what you're going through. Jill breaks down exactly why knowing how to use your attorney (rather than leaning on them for everything) will actually save you money, why going into mediation prepared is one of the most powerful things you can do, and why the emotional tools you build early make every step after easier. Whether you're just starting to think about divorce, in the thick of it, or supporting someone you love who is, this conversation is a clear-eyed, warm-hearted reminder: you are stronger than you realize, you don't have to figure this out alone, and there are people — the right people — who are ready to walk this road with 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/

If the first thing you did when your marriage started falling apart was Google the most aggressive divorce attorney in town, you are not alone — and you are not wrong for it. But what if there was a smarter, calmer, more strategic way to get through one of the hardest chapters of your life? In this episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits down with Melissa Murphy Pavone, a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA®), and author of the newly released book Divorce by Design: How Building a Divorce Team Can Help You Get Divorced Efficiently Without Going Broke in Less Than a Year. Melissa brings both professional expertise and deeply personal motivation to this conversation — as a child of divorce herself, she watched her own mother make emotionally-driven financial decisions without the right support system in place. That experience became her why, and it's the engine behind everything she does to help others navigate divorce recovery with clarity, strategy, and confidence.

What makes this episode genuinely essential listening for anyone starting over after divorce — or contemplating it — is the framework Melissa lays out so clearly: you don't just need an attorney. You need a team. Emotional support comes first, then financial guidance, then legal counsel. That sequence, Melissa explains, is everything. When people are in heightened emotional states, they cannot make sound long-term decisions — and that's exactly when the wrong professionals or the wrong advice can cause the most damage. Her financial clarity package, designed for people quietly considering divorce, helps replace fear with facts and replace overwhelm with a realistic, eyes-wide-open view of what life after divorce can actually look like. It's the kind of grounded, practical support that makes single mom life — and co-parenting after divorce — a little less terrifying.

Divorce by Design is for everyone — not just people in the middle of a split. Melissa makes the case that this book belongs in the hands of happily married people, friends of those going through divorce, family members, coworkers, and neighbors, because divorce does not discriminate. And in a world where vulnerability too often becomes an invitation for exploitation, knowledge is the most powerful form of protection. Whether you're newly separated, years into parenting after divorce, or simply someone who loves a person in crisis, this conversation will leave you with clarity, a sense of direction, and the reassurance that you don't have to do this alone. Build your team. Design your divorce. And trust that starting over after divorce — on your own terms — is absolutely possible.

🔗 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/

There is a quiet pressure that follows divorce like a shadow — the pressure to be fine. To be strong. To show everyone, and maybe especially yourself, that you are thriving and not broken and absolutely, definitely over it. In this intimate and deeply moving solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits with that pressure and names it for what it is: a lie that is costing women their healing. Because the truth — the one Olivia speaks directly and without flinching — is that grieving your marriage does not mean you made the wrong decision. Those two things can live in the same body at the same time. And learning to let them is one of the most important things you can do in divorce recovery.

Olivia unpacks the shape of divorce grief with the kind of clarity that only comes from having lived it: the grief for the person you thought you were marrying, the holidays that looked a certain way, the version of the future you had to let go of. She names the dangerous pattern of performing okayness for an audience that isn’t even watching anymore — and what happens when grief doesn’t get to come out. It goes underground, she says. It shows up later in your body, your relationships, those two-in-the-morning hours when you can’t outrun it. Grief is not your enemy. It is, as Olivia puts it, just love with nowhere left to go. And that reframe alone is worth the listen.

The episode closes with three gentle, concrete things to actually do with your grief: name it when it arrives instead of pushing it underground, stop putting a deadline on it because there is no expiration date on grieving a marriage, and let it mean something. Your grief, Olivia reminds us, is not a referendum on your decision. It is not proof of weakness or failure. It is evidence that you were present in your own life, that you loved, that you showed up. And that same capacity — that bigness that loved deeply enough to grieve — is exactly what will carry you into whatever comes next. This is the episode for every woman in the middle of healing after divorce who needs permission to feel it all the way through.

🔗 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/

There is a version of this story that gets told over and over again in our culture — the one where leaving a marriage is the failure, and staying is the strength. Where the person who files the papers is the one who gave up. Where divorce is a tragedy, and the one who initiates it is somehow the villain. In this deeply personal solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell takes that narrative apart, piece by piece, with the kind of directness and compassion only someone who’s lived it can offer. This isn’t a conversation about whether you made the right choice. This is a conversation about what it actually took to make it — and why that matters more than anyone gives you credit for.

Olivia names the invisible weight that divorced women carry into every difficult decision: the sleepless nights, the second-guessing, the rehearsed conversations, the fear of starting over when rebuilding feels impossibly large. She speaks directly to the single moms in the thick of divorce recovery, the ones still wondering if their hard days mean they were wrong — and she offers one of the most important mindset shifts in the divorce healing journey: hard and wrong are not the same thing. Choosing to leave, she argues, is not an act of selfishness. For so many women navigating life after divorce and parenting after divorce, it is the most generous, honest, and courageous thing they have ever done — not just for themselves, but for their kids, who need to watch their mothers choose themselves.

Perhaps the most powerful moment of this episode is Olivia’s message to the people still sitting in the in-between, not yet out, not yet sure, paralyzed by the size of the decision ahead. Her reframe is simple and quietly radical: courage doesn’t come before the act. It lives inside the doing. You don’t have to feel brave first. You just have to take the next step. And for everyone already on the other side of that decision — still raw, still second-guessing on the hard days — Olivia ends with something worth hearing as many times as it takes: you didn’t give up on your marriage. You refused to give up on yourself. This is the episode for anyone who needs to be reminded, with love and without equivocation, that leaving took guts — and that guts deserve to be celebrated.

🔗 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/

Nobody warns you about this part. The divorce attorneys explain the paperwork. The therapists help you process the grief of your marriage. Your family tells you it’s going to be okay. But almost no one prepares you for the moment you realize that some of the friendships you built your entire social world around — the dinner couples, the group text, the women who knew everything about your life — have quietly, without explanation, disappeared. In this tender and deeply honest solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell names one of the most overlooked losses in the divorce recovery experience: the grief of the friends who couldn’t follow you through.

Olivia speaks directly to the disorienting sting of social loss after divorce — the way it compounds the grief you’re already carrying, the story your brain tells about what it means, and why that story is almost always wrong. She untangles the real reasons friends disappear (it’s about their own marriage, their own fears, their own discomfort with what your courage made them face) from the ones we blame ourselves for, and she makes an important distinction between friendships that had genuine roots and those that were always built on circumstance and shared social structure. Understanding the difference, she says, is not a wound — it’s a map. Because now you know exactly who and what to build toward in your life after divorce.

The episode closes with something that sits like a hand on your shoulder: the friends who are still standing — even if there are only one or two of them — are showing you what real friendship looks like. And the new ones coming, the ones who will meet this rebuilt and more-honest version of you, are going to be some of the best relationships of your life. The ones who disappeared made room for them. And for every woman who is still in the in-between, still in the lonely reshuffling of her social circle, Olivia ends with a reminder that lands softly and stays: you are not as alone as it feels right now. This community is full of women who lost the same friends, felt the same sting, and are healing after divorce the same way you are. You belong here.

🔗 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/

Spring has a way of being quietly cruel when you're in the middle of a divorce. The world turns bright and blooming and annoyingly beautiful, and you're still just trying to get through the week — maybe the day, maybe the hour. The flowers don't know your timeline. The Instagram farmers market hauls don't know you're rebuilding from the ground up. And somewhere in that gap between what the season looks like and what your life feels like, there's a pressure that settles in: the sense that you're supposed to feel renewed because the calendar says so, and if you don't, that's one more thing you're failing at. In this tender, honest solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell is here to say, loudly and clearly: you are not failing at spring. You are not failing at anything.

Unlike the show's expert-driven episodes, this one is something different — a direct, from-the-heart check-in from Olivia herself, without a clinical framework or a listicle in sight. Just one woman who has been through it, speaking directly to another. Olivia opens with a truth that doesn't get said enough in the divorce recovery space: grief and transition don't bloom on schedule. The emotional weight of divorce — whether you're in it, coming out of it, or standing at the edge trying to decide — doesn't take a season off just because the days are longer now. And that moment of noticing the contrast between the world outside and how frozen you feel inside? Olivia reframes it entirely. That's not you being broken. That's you being honest. And honesty with yourself, she says, is the first thing that has to bloom before everything else can. It's a mindset shift that is simple, grounding, and quietly powerful for anyone in the thick of starting over after divorce.

The episode closes with three gentle, specific encouragements that feel less like advice and more like a hand on the shoulder. First: you don't have to be further along than you are. There is no finish line you're behind on. Second: give yourself actual credit for what you're doing every single day — the getting up, the showing up, the holding it together on willpower and a good playlist. It counts. All of it counts. And third: spring really is for you. Not the Instagram version of new beginnings, but the real one — slow and muddy and mostly invisible until one day something quietly blooms and you realize it was happening all along. If you know someone navigating divorce this season, this episode is the thing to send them. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do for each other is just say: I'm thinking about you. You're not alone. And you're going to be okay.

🔗 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/