Jana Kramer and her ex-husband Mike Caussin are getting real about child support costs.
“That’s a hot button for us,” Caussin, 37, said during the Tuesday, November 12, episode of Kramer’s “Whine Down” podcast. “We know that. You hate it [and] I hate it.”
Kramer, 40, and Caussin were married from 2015 to 2021, splitting for good after the former football player had been unfaithful. They now coparent daughter Jolie, 8, and son Jace, 5. In their divorce decree, Kramer received primary custody of the kids and was also ordered to pay Caussin $3,200 each month for child support.
“This is the only thing we really, truly fight about,” Kramer added on her podcast.
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Caussin concurred, calling the arguments the “last remaining resentment” from the divorce.
“Jana hasn’t made up that I enjoy receiving that, especially with money being a thing in our marriage and our history and all this kind of stuff,” he said. “You always kind of brought that up. The last thing I want is for you to think that I want that from you. So, finding my way post-divorce [and] finding my career where I can provide and do all of that stuff has taken some time.”
Caussin recently started his own business, understanding that financial success doesn’t happen straight away. Once he reaches that point, Caussin no longer wants to rely on Kramer’s funds.
“I have my goal [that] by a certain time, I’m going to show up and have a paper from my lawyer signing over, like, ‘Hey, this is not your legal obligation anymore,’” Caussin insisted to Kramer. “That’ll be the most freeing moment for me, like, ever in the history of Mike and Jana. So, no part of me enjoys [receiving the funds] at all. I hate it.”
After Kramer questioned why Caussin hated receiving the monthly sum, he attributed it to Kramer’s perceptions.
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“I know how much weight you have with it, like, how it affects you and that you hold it against me,” Caussin said. “It creates this narrative that just isn’t accurate in my mind and it’s just the last remaining thing from anything conflicting between us that still lingers from our past. I want to be able to relinquish both of us … from that.”
Caussin also doesn’t want the financial burden to affect his coparenting relationship with Kramer and her new husband, Allan Russell. (Kramer and the Scottish soccer coach, 43, got married in July months after welcoming their son, Roman.)
“You both have a few ways that you justify it, and it will always cause some sort of conflict,” Russell said on the Tuesday podcast episode. “Finance is one of the biggest things. One pays [and] one receives. There will always be resentment and conflict though, it’s just how you manage it with each other.”
Kramer and Caussin further agreed that they “don’t want” to have any underlying resentment.
“I have this pipe dream,” Kramer said. “I’m like, ‘Well, how do I believe that he says in how many years or whatever this will actually happen?’ Then there will always be this thing and I don’t want there to be. I want to be, like, free from it all.”