Hoda Kotb has revealed the moment she knew her engagement to Joel Schiffman was over in her new book, according to excerpts shared with Today.com.
The former Today host, 61, described an “epiphany” during a week-long retreat that changed everything about her seven-year relationship with Schiffman, 67.
The Retreat Revelation
Kotb attended a program at the Hoffman Institute, which helps people make significant life changes. During the retreat, she stood before other participants and made a difficult admission.
“I am a total phony in my relationships,” she told the group. “I’m a pretender.”
The moment came after watching others share their honest stories. Kotb wrote in Jump and Find Joy that their honesty moved her to tell the truth about why she’d come to the retreat.
She knew immediately that “everything had shifted” in her relationship with Schiffman.
“Our ‘us’ felt different,” Kotb wrote in the book.
What ‘Pretender’ Meant
In her interview with Today.com, Kotb explained what she meant by calling herself a pretender in relationships.
“I think sometimes you know that a relationship is – I would say good – but you think to yourself it’s not deepening.”
She continued: “So you continue along [in] the relationship, and I think the truth of the matter is sometimes you have to say to yourself, like, ‘I feel like I’m an optimist.’ And so, when you’re an optimist, you want to make things work, and sometimes, things don’t.”
Kotb called making that admission “one of the best ten-second decisions” of her life.
That moment “just was an epiphany for me, and it took courage for me to say it. And when I did, I felt like, ‘OK, there it is.'”
A Different Kind of Love
The couple announced their split on Today in 2022 after being together for seven years. They remain friends and co-parent daughters Haley, 8, and Hope, 6.
“I loved Joel then, and I love Joel now,” Kotb told Today.com. “I just had to remind myself that it was a different kind of love.”
She added: “You can still love and admire someone and not want to be in a relationship, a long-term relationship that way, personal relationship.”
The former couple adopted Haley in 2017 and Hope in 2019. Schiffman proposed to Kotb in 2019.
Co-Parenting Success
Kotb says their current friendship works well for everyone involved.
“I think we’ve always been connected and will always be connected for many reasons,” she explained. “We will co-parent in a beautiful way, but I also think our ‘us’ is more of a, like, we’re dear friends now.”
“We were laughing the other day just in hysterics, and I feel like this is the right relationship for us to have.”
The exes share parenting duties on weekends. “He’ll have a Saturday, and I’ll do the Sunday. We switch each week,” Kotb told PEOPLE after their split. “He’ll take the girls and do some fun things, and I’ll take some quiet time. It’s a healthy mix, and the kids love it. He’s a great dad.”
Looking for a Soul Connection
While Kotb isn’t actively dating, she revealed she’s “longing for a soul connection” in her Today.com interview.
She’s “convinced” that there’s “someone meant for me out there.”
“I have no doubt in my mind that that exists and that person is out there.”
When announcing their split on air in 2022, Kotb said: “We decided that we’re better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple, so we decided we are going to start this new year … on our new path as loving parents to our adorable, delightful children, and as friends.”
Jump and Find Joy is available now wherever books are sold.
