'This isn't what I wanted. I didn't want to be a single mom,' the 'Dancing With the Stars' alum admits.
Jana Kramer is opening up about how her inner circle is helping her move forward amid her divorce from Mike Caussin.
During the latest episode of her Whine Down podcast, the 37-year-old actress invited her former Dancing With the Stars partner, Gleb Savchenko, on as a virtual guest, where she revealed she reached out to him for advice on co-parenting. Kramer shares two kids, daughter Jolie, 5, and son Jace, 2, with Caussin. Savchenko shares two daughters, Olivia, 10, and Zlata, 3, with Elena Samodanova, who filed for divorce from the DWTS pro last December.
"Throughout the years, we haven't stayed in touch a lot, but I will say, I greatly appreciated [when] you reached out to me when you heard about my breakup," explained Kramer, who competed with Savchenko during season 23 of DWTS. "You've been so sweet and kind through it because, you know, you've walked the same path."
"I really appreciate you reaching out and just kind of helping me with questions," she added. "I was asking him one time, I'm like, 'How do you do it? How do you co-parent when you're angry?' Because you're going through that. I just appreciate all the support that you've shown me."
Savchenko chimed in, telling Kramer, "It's life. Life happens, and we just keep moving."
"You just gotta do what's best for you. In my situation, I love Elena, I have huge respect for her, of course, she's the mother of my kids," he explained. "It's hard at times, because no one's perfect, but you have to communicate. When it's in the early stage I feel like it's really hard to do because you can't really stand each other. You're like, 'I don't want to see your a**, at all.' But because you have kids, [it's different]. We just decided that we're not going to speak about anything negative in front of the kids, regardless of what's going on."
"I wanna show my girls how dad should treat their mom, which is really important to me," he continued. "They should know how they should be treated in the future. Everything else, it is what it is."
Kramer admitted to Savchenko that one of the hardest parts about going through her divorce is that she never wanted "to do this alone."
"The only thing that gets me is like, the other night I was super overwhelmed. I don't have any help," she shared. "It's just hard and I had a partner in this before. One of the days, it was just a really, really hard day. The kids were just being difficult and I had a lot of work to do ... and at the end of the day I just started crying, because I'm like, 'I didn't ask to do this alone.' Like, I wanted my husband, I wanted my partner to do this with me."
"This doesn't feel good to feel this frustrated and you should see my house. It's a mess, but I only have so much time," she continued. "I just kind of feel like I'm depleted a little bit and I need to ask for help and do that. But it's hard and I get upset, because again, I didn't want to do this alone. This isn't what I wanted. I didn't want to be a single mom."
Kramer added that she doesn't miss Caussin and that's she's "very happy" with her decision to move forward.
"I'm trying to keep the distance because I just think it's better for us with less communication," she said of how co-parenting is going on her end. "There's a lot of emotions and it's very hard to be the bigger person when the person that hurt you is not nice."
"I just now know what I need to do now. I'm just distancing myself and I'm doing my part in being nice," she added. "That's all I can control. The less communication, the better right now. It sucks, but hopefully one day when all the emotions wear off, we can be friendly."
Later in the podcast, Kramer and Savchenko also discussed their dating lives, and their plans to meet up again in person sometime soon.
"I'm not dating anyone. Sometimes you don't even need to date anyone. Like, just have a good time," Savchenko advised. "It's all about the energy, surrounding yourself with the people you want to be with. Recharge, find yourself back, wake up in the morning and be excited about life."
"The Cabo thing, it was just good times," he added, referencing his PDA-packed trip with Cassie Scerbo last winter. "Cabo was beautiful, but I want to go to Tulum next time."
Kramer said that she's never been to Tulum either, to which Savchenko suggested, "Let's go. As friends!"
"Listen, what's wrong with that?" Savchenko asked. "We danced on the show for four months, we've stayed in touch. Like, when you're in Los Angeles, let's go to dinner and stuff."
"I'd love to go dinner," Kramer responded. "I'd love to. I'm going to be there in like a week or so. So, yeah, would love to see you."
After Savchenko left the chat, Kramer spoke with guest co-host Kathryn Vieira Woodard more about what it's been like reconnecting with her former dance partner amid their respective divorces.
"He's so sweet. He's a sweetheart. It's so crazy, though, like how our lives are changing around the same time," Kramer shared. "Gleb and I aren't, like, besties, but he reached out [after the divorce news]."
"It really did mean a lot when he reached out," she added. "You realize who your friends are when you go through that ... it's just nice to know that people care."
Hear more in the video below.
RELATED CONTENT:
