Jana Kramer has been an open book about her divorce from ex-husband Mike Caussin — but she wouldn’t have shared everything publicly without his approval.
“Even writing stuff about my ex in my book, it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m obviously writing stories, here are some of them. Would you like to see them?’” Kramer, 42, recalled on the Friday, March 13, episode of her “Whine Down” podcast.
Kramer said that she gave Caussin, 39, a heads-up about what she planned to include in her 2023 book, The Next Chapter: Making Peace with Hard Memories, Finding Hope All Around Me, and Clearing Space for Good Things to Come―Navigating Heartbreak and Loss with Wisdom.
Kramer explained, “I think it’s the respectful thing to do to reach out to people if you’re going to talk about them.”
The One Tree Hill alum joked that she told Caussin at the time that “because our book deal about trust went away,” she was instead going to write about her experience as a divorcee.
The now-exes previously collaborated on The Good Fight: Wanting to Leave, Choosing to Stay, and the Powerful Practice for Loving Faithfully and were supposed to work together on a second project about trust when Kramer learned that Caussin allegedly cheated on her . (Caussin has not publicly spoke about the alleged infidelity, but Kramer wrote about it in her book). They split for good in spring 2021.
“I said, what I want you to know first and foremost is that this isn’t an ‘I hate Mike book.’ This is about my year post-divorce,” Kramer remembered on Friday’s podcast.
She told him, “There are things I didn’t speak about to protect you, mostly the kids. Because if there were certain things I put in there he would’ve fought [about it].”
Kramer told her listeners, “I felt like I was tasteful enough with the stories” and Caussin agreed.
“He goes, ‘I trust that you are saying what you’re saying about the stories and that you wouldn’t put in what I would hope you wouldn’t,’” she shared.
Kramer confessed that if the tables were turned, “I would’ve read every single page.”
When asked whether she would have “changed” any parts of the story if Caussin had objected, Kramer admitted that she would but only “pieces” of her book because it was her “truth.”
Kramer noted that when it comes to her split from Caussin, her book and what she discusses on her podcast only focuses on their past together, not what the retired NFL player is doing now.
“Whatever you do now, it’s not on me to talk about. I’m not that person,” Kramer said. “All I’ve ever talked about was past experiences when we were in a marriage.”
Kramer announced in April 2021 that she and Caussin were getting divorced after nearly six years of marriage.
“‘It’s time.’ As I try to make sense of a reality I never wanted to believe could be possible again, those words have now become a reality,” she wrote via Instagram at the time. ”I’ve fought y’all. I’ve loved hard. I’ve forgiven. I’ve put the work in. I’ve given everything I have, and now I have nothing else to give.”
Kramer and Caussin previously separated in 2016 after Us Weekly broke the news that he was unfaithful. Caussin later entered treatment for sex addiction and the pair renewed their vows in 2017.
The exes, who share daughter Jolie, 10, and son Jace, 7, split for good in 2021 after he allegedly confessed to cheating on her again. (Kramer is now married to Allan Russell, with whom she shares son Roman, 2.)
Kramer has continued to speak about her highs and lows with Caussin as well as their coparenting dynamic on her podcast.
In her book, she claimed that amid their divorce proceedings, Caussin told her, “You know, I never really loved you.”
“He wanted to hurt me, and news flash, it did,” she wrote. “I had taken massive steps away from him and toward a new future in the last few weeks, but hearing those words confirmed the little voice in my head that had been telling me that everything he did and said in our marriage was because he didn’t love me.”
