Mike Caussin and Jana Kramer have found an interesting niche for their lifestyle brand, the foundation of which is selling their dysfunctional marriage. Mike is a recovering sex addict who has cheated on Jana throughout their relationship. He sought treatment, which included him almost divorcing her during one of his stays in rehab, oddly enough. And Jana has recently admitted she strayed as well, although she justified it because he did it first, or some such logic. The couple have a podcast, Whine Down with Jane Kramer and Mike Caussin, and released – I kid you not – a self-help book called The Good Fight. The bent of most of their discussions seem to be that Mike is severely flawed and always messing up, but they love each other so much and their relationship is worth fighting for, so they do. Then they post a series of loved up photos in which they talk about how grateful they are for each other. Monday, however, they took a different approach. Jana posted the photo above to her Instagram with a statement supposedly written by Mike, in which he celebrated “the most sober year of my entire life.” The caption read:
“As an addict I carry a lot of shame. Others who share a similar disease can relate. We rarely like to speak about it let alone acknowledge it. But this Thursday I celebrate the most sober year of my entire life. I’ve had my stumbles and falls over the last four years in this program but this year has finally been different. None of that has been possible without finally allowing myself to lean into others, lean into my wife and lean into God. This isn’t a post for attention, sympathy or congrats. It’s a post to express humility and acknowledge that we don’t have to go through life alone. As human beings and especially as men we can learn to be vulnerable, we can allow others to help us when we need it. So maybe going into this new year we can all lean into each other a bit more. It’s our choice whether we want to live divided or together. So given that choice why would you want to be divided? We are all different and thats what makes us the breathing miracles we are. Let’s choose to embrace that in 2021. “ -Mike. #mikemonday #sober. Head to our podcast this week to hear all about the birthday coming up
There’s a lot to unpack here, starting with the fact this statement is posted on Jana’s account. I remember grabbing photos from Mike’s IG before, so I looked it up and his IG is now solely a promotional account for their podcast. The photos there are either podcasts guests/friends or loving couple photos with Jana, family photos with the kids or Jana on her own, virtually none of Mike alone. Every caption is either Jana speaking or some third person speaking about Jana. Mike’s words only show up in quotes. It’s weird and specifically curated to erase Mike’s voice. The Whine Down IG’s caption for Mike’s one-year milestone reads, “The start of the new year marks one whole year of sobriety for Mike from sex addiction.” So did Mike get a full year of sobriety or, as he said above, was it “the most sober year” of his life? Because those are very different statements in the language of addiction. Normally I wouldn’t scrutinize something like this so much, but Jana and Mike have begged us to do just that. They literally bank on the public’s obsession with Mike’s addiction, their chaotic relationship and what will go wrong next. When fans referred to their marriage as The Perfect Trainwreck, they named a podcast episode after it. They eat up being the little dysfunctional couple that could.
Which brings us back to Mike’s statement. I think that’s what this is, a half-hearted attempt to show progress. Because even though their issues have gotten them this far, if they want to be perceived as relationship gurus, they have to actually show growth to hawk podcasts and books on the subject. So they’ll kick off 2021 with a new and improved Mike, a more solid relationship, more trust – everything they’ve been working towards. Mostly. That’s the key for these two – they can’t be fixed, or they lose their edge. Past-tense problems aren’t going to sell, especially since we’ve heard all theirs already. So they have, once again, placed the bait for more chaos to come. It’s only a matter of time before we learn the pockets in last year that made it “the most sober year” and not a completely sober year.
And honestly, it’s so disingenuous to say this statement isn’t for attention. Everything they do is for attention.
Photo credit: Instagram
Or they could, I dunno, get real jobs and live calmer, less dramatic lives like the rest of us…
The only people I feel sorry for are the children
I listen to their podcast and Jana was so pissed off in the last episode. She was like: how many more times do I have to bake a cake for your 1-year-sober-anniversary. You can just hear that she doesn’t trust him and even the third co-host says, that she doesn’t trust him, because you never know 100% if he is really faithful.
My parents had a very tumultuous marriage, but thank GOD they didn’t blast it all over social media, along with pictures of us and our names. Those poor kids will lead a life of embarrassment because of their selfish parents. If it were really all about them and their struggles, they would leave the little ones out of it. It’s disgusting how selfish they are. Sex addiction? More like addiction to attention at the cost of their children’s wellbeing.
I mean, eventually they’re going to have to start moving towards being a success story to continue to sell their BS to people in the same situation.
I don’t think they’ll ever get there.
I hope one day Jana learns to love herself and stop accepting the scraps from someone’s table.
Their entire brand requires him to relapse on a regular basis, her to forgive him and them to ‘work through it’. I can’t see how that allows any proper treatment (or at least massively impairs treatment). It’s hard enough overcoming an addiction without the knowledge that if you do you will have no way of supporting your children.
Of course this was his most sober year-we were in quarantine for 3/4 of it! 🙄. This is the most dysfunctional relationship-and the fact that they celebrate this dysfunction, makes me very sad for their children.
I mean.. not to dump on someone’s accomplishment but if you were going to cheat.. I can’t imagine this year would be your year to do it anyways you know? With covid it would have been much harder for him to cheat so do I think it was his most sober year; probably. It was also a pandemic where we were all locked down and told not to socialize outside of our bubble lol so I don’t know if I was Jana I would probably not be thaaaat impressed. Tell him to show us his search history that would be the proof lol
It’s a pandemic, so cheating would have been much harder.
I know sex addiction is a real disease, but I tend to side-eye a lot because there is a huge difference between actual addiction and just total indifference to your marriage to the point that you screw around whenever you feel like it. I suspect the diagnosis is overused particularly in celebrity circles to excuse poor behavior that isn’t an addiction so much as a lousy moral compass.
I thought there was no consensus on a clinical diagnosis for sex addiction, but that “hypersexuality” is a real issue/can be a symptom of established mental illnesses. Which is a suddenly increased/extremely frequent libido.
I know everyone’s struggles are different, but I had an issue with hypersexuality just before my clinical bipolar diagnosis, and I did not cheat on my then-boyfriend, now-husband. It can make you feel extremely impulsive, but it doesn’t make you powerless.
Exactly. Hypersexuality IS a diagnosis. I haven’t read up on the debate about sex addiction. But like I said, I feel like it’s been used too often as an excuse for just cheating because of lousy morals.
Sex addiction is considered a behavioral addiction (Non-substance). So far, the only behavioral addiction in the DSM 5 is gambling disorder. Internet gaming addiction is more likely to be included in upcoming versions of the DSM than sex addiction. And yes, hypersexuality is a symptom of an underlying disorder, not a disorder in and of itself. The debate really centers around whether or not sex “addiction” is the best way to conceptualize hypersexual behavior (that may or may not include infidelity) for the purposes of treatment. Many times it makes more sense to treat these people for a trauma, anxiety, depression, etc. Also you would likely see a lot of overlap with personality disorders.
Whenever I see the words sex addiction, I think of that terrible Lisa Renna/Harry Hamlin movie about his sex addiction and then I’m sad. That movie was so terrible
I watched that movie too and felt it made it seem glamorous and sexy.
Frick and Frack are back at it again, I see.
I love analyzing words, and I always appreciate when others detect and call out masterful word-smithing. Well done on the analysis, Hecate!
I honestly don’t get why they don’t just end this relationship.
I didn’t read the article, but just came to say: Who?