{"podcast":{"title":"Divorce Happens","slug":"divorce-happens-6931880","podcast_index_feed_id":6931880,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/divorce-happens/","website_url":"https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/divorce-happens","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/4ef67130-0ef6-4ddc-8223-01a75a67ba34/show-cover.jpg","author":"Fresh Starts Registry","episode_count":299,"summary":"Welcome to Divorce Happens, the podcast where we inspire, educate, and support you through divorce and beyond so that you can start fresh on the next phase of your journey. Produced by Fresh Starts Registry, the only divorce registry platform for everything you need to begin again, including home items, hype team, and everything in between. Remember, divorce happens...and then, we start fresh. We're here to support you before, during, and after divorce. Hosted by Olivia Dreizen Howell, the co-founder and CEO of Fresh Starts Registry.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-10T04:24:06.385376+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/divorce-happens-6931880"},"episode":{"title":"Hey Olivia, Why Do I Keep Having Sex Dreams About the Husband I'm Divorcing?","slug":"hey-olivia-why-do-i-keep-having-sex-dreams-about-the-husband-i-m-divorcing","published_at":"2026-07-20T15:20:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/divorce-happens-6931880/hey-olivia-why-do-i-keep-having-sex-dreams-about-the-husband-i-m-divorcing","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/divorce-happens-6931880","url":"https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/divorce-happens","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/57027a8a-8cfd-4c93-a5ad-ec751e2266be.mp3","summary":"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 reli…","meta_description":"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 lik…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":388,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/divorce-happens-6931880/episodes/hey-olivia-why-do-i-keep-having-sex-dreams-about-the-husband-i-m-divorcing/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/divorce-happens-6931880/hey-olivia-why-do-i-keep-having-sex-dreams-about-the-husband-i-m-divorcing.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}