Jana Kramer is a fighter.
During Wednesday, Sept. 23's all-new Just the Sip, the country singer opened up about why she chose to fight for her marriage. This interview couldn't be timelier as Jana and husband Mike Caussin's just-released memoir, The Good Fight: Wanting to Leave, Choosing to Stay, and the Powerful Practice for Loving Faithfully, details the couple's raw marriage moments, including the former NFL star's infidelity and sex addiction.
With everything they've been through, why did Jana choose to fight for her marriage? At the time, Jana said she did it for her daughter, Jolie Rae Caussin.
"If it wasn't for my daughter, I most likely would've walked away," Jana told host Justin Sylvester. "She was six months at the time when I found out about everything and as a mama bear, I was like, ‘You don't get to ruin this. You don't get to ruin my family, what I worked so hard for.'"
As she continued, the One Tree Hill star said she didn't want "another woman to raise my child."
Although Jolie Rae was her "number one reason to fight," Jana admitted that she felt "weak" at times.
"At times, I felt that it was weak of me to stay because it would've been harder to leave," she expressed. "‘Cause I had my daughter…But now, I realize that it took a real crap ton of strength."
While Jana credited her daughter for fighting for her marriage, she also praised husband Mike's willingness to work on himself.
"What continued on was his willingness to fight for it," she relayed. "Because, if he didn't do the work on himself to go to rehab to continue to grow and change and do therapy, there'd be no way."
In regard to how she found out about the cheating, Jana told Justin that a friend's intuition led her to the truth.
"I didn't know," the "I Got the Boy" singer reflected. "I had a friend that told me that he was cheating. And I'm like, 'How do you know?' And she's like, 'I just know. I can see how he treats you. I see it all.'"
According to Jana, she went on to google "weird" phone numbers from their bill and confronted Mike with the evidence.
"And, of course, I had to call an hour before my show, because I needed to know," she continued. "I've never shared this, but I was sitting with my two girlfriends…And I'm on FaceTime with him and I was like, 'I know everything. And you need to tell me everything.'"
In reality, Jana "knew nothing" and just had suspicious phone numbers.
"I had to go with it," Jana confessed. "And I was like, 'You have five minutes to gather your thoughts and call me back.' And he just goes, 'Ok.'"
At this moment, Jana knew something was wrong, but didn't know the extent of the situation. When Mike called her back, his confession "rocked" Jana's world.
"He told me some things and then about a few of the affairs," she added. "It wasn't until after he got back from rehab was when the full discovery of everything and how many women…I don't know how it all could've happened."
Per Jana, when she returned home after the initial phone call, she "went psycho."
"I was like, 'Get the motherf out of the house,'" she stated. "Things were thrown…I took a hammer to all of his Xboxes. I was like, 'This is your only vice? Not a chance!'"
However, during couple's therapy, Jana said she began processing what was going on with Mike.
She reflected, "It took me about a full year, probably, to let it sink in."
These days, Jana said she's in the "strongest marriage ever," but she's aware that she's "married to an addict." If Mike is unfaithful in the future, Jana said she will not enable that behavior.
"The last thing I want is to not have my family together and have to be co-parenting, I don't want to do that," she stated. "I know now that I could and I'm strong enough to walk away, if need be."
For Jana's entire interview, click here.