About this episode

Olivia Howell explores the guilt associated with leaving emotionally abusive relationships and explains its psychological roots.

If you’ve ever sat with the thought of leaving an emotionally abusive relationship and felt, instead of relief, a wave of guilt — this episode is for you. Not the guilt of someone who is doing something wrong. The guilt of someone who has been so thoroughly conditioned to put themselves last that the simple act of imagining their own freedom feels like a betrayal. In this deeply compassionate and psychologically grounded solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell names that specific, gut-wrenching feeling and does something more valuable than tell you to push past it: she explains exactly where it comes from. Because understanding the source of the guilt — really understanding it — is what begins to loosen its grip. Olivia walks through two of the most important and most misunderstood psychological realities of emotionally abusive relationships. The first: that the guilt survivors feel when they consider leaving is not their conscience speaking. It is the abuse speaking. Emotional abuse works, in part, by systematically training its target to feel responsible for the abuser’s feelings, reactions, and pain — so that any act of self-prioritization triggers shame. The…

People in this episode

Host: Olivia Howell

Topics covered

• emotional abuse
• guilt
• trauma bonding
• self-prioritization
• psychological realities
• relationships

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• Hey Olivia, What Are Your Feelings on Divorce Parties? (My Honest Answer!) · June 2, 2026 · 7 min
• Hey Olivia, How Do I Start Talking About Possibly Separating When Communication Is Gone? · June 2, 2026 · 7 min

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