Hey Olivia, how do I stop keeping score of who picked his side?
Have mutual friends been taking sides since your divorce? In this Hey Olivia listener letter episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia Howell talks with anyone who has caught themselves tallying who reached out and who didn't, and wants to let that habit go.
A listener wrote in: โSome of our mutual friends have clearly chosen his side since the divorce, still inviting him to game nights, tagging him in photos I wasn't asked to. I've caught myself scrolling old group texts, mentally tallying who reached out and who didn't.โ
Key takeaways
Mutual friends quietly sorting themselves after a divorce is a real, specific loss, not an overreaction.
Tallying who reached out gives concrete shape to diffuse hurt, but it doesn't actually resolve anything.
There's a real difference between grieving a social shift and endlessly tallying it.
Not every friend who drifted made a moral judgment. Some of it is structural, tied to old patterns and existing connections.
A simple tool for interrupting the loop: name it plainly, out loud. "I'm keeping score again."
Redirecting your energy toward the people who did show up matters more than auditing who left.
Letting go of the tally isn't the same as pretending the loss didn't hurt.
โGrieving genuinely moves you through the loss, toward something on the other side of it. Tallying substitutes for grieving.โ
Resources
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If this episode helped, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who's been quietly keeping score. You can grieve these friendships and still stop counting.