Divorce doesn’t usually arrive all at once. It creeps in through sleepless nights, quiet dread, and the feeling that the life you’re living no longer fits the person you’ve become. In this episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia Howell sits down with therapist and Fresh Starts Expert Oona Metz, whose decades of clinical experience—and lived experience—offer rare clarity in the fog of divorce. Oona is the author of Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women, a book written for women navigating the emotional, psychological, and identity-shifting realities of divorce, not just the logistics.

Oona brings over 30 years as a therapist and more than 15 years running divorce support groups for women, alongside her own experience being divorced twice. In this conversation, she shares what she’s witnessed in hundreds of clients: the grief that mirrors death but isn’t acknowledged as such, the shame many women carry—especially those who “should have known better”—and the profound identity rupture that comes when marriage ends. Together, Olivia and Oona unpack why divorce recovery is not linear, why emotional validation matters as much as legal strategy, and how boundaries, self-trust, and support systems become survival tools during this transition.

What makes this episode transformative is its permission-giving. Permission to gather information without making immediate decisions. Permission to grieve without explanation. Permission to start over without apologizing. Listeners will walk away with practical mindset shifts—like reframing divorce as a life transition rather than a failure—and actionable insights on assembling a support team, protecting emotional safety, and honoring the slow work of healing. This episode is a steady hand on your back for anyone navigating divorce recovery, emotional abuse fallout, co-parenting transitions, or single mom life—and a reminder that divorce happens, but so does healing.

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