Jenna Wolfe Reveals She and Wife Stephanie Gosk Have Split, Opens Up About Her Hysterectomy and Double Mastectomy (Exclusive)

The former 'Today' anchor and mom of 2 tells PEOPLE exclusively that she's had “a brutal couple of months” after testing positive for the breast cancer gene BRCA and undergoing preventive surgeries

Jenna Wolfe is taking things one day at a time.

“For the first time in my life, I don't have answers to big important questions,” the former Today host, 49, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “And I have to be okay with that.”

The past few years have been a roller coaster for her family.

In Sept. 2021, she separated from her partner of 10 years, Stephanie Gosk. The pair married in 2013 and welcomed their first daughter Harper, that same year, and their second, Quinn, in 2015.

But the pandemic put a strain on their relationship. “COVID was really tough, because we both worked from home,” says Wolfe, who was an anchor for Fox Sports at the time. With Gosk covering news for NBC, the two were doing live shots from their apartment in midtown Manhattan.

Related: Jenna Wolfe Gives Update on Recovery After Mastectomy: 'I'm Getting There'

“There's a lot of beautiful ego that comes with one person being on television,” jokes Wolfe. “But when there's two people on television, plus both kids trying to do Zoom school in a Manhattan apartment, there's just no space anywhere,” she says.

“We decided after that, in order to preserve the relationship, it was better that Steph moved out,” Wolfe says, adding that they are “still great friends, still loving parents” to Harper, now 9, and Quinn, 8.

There was another reason the pandemic was so difficult: Wolfe’s mom was diagnosed with aggressive, Stage 3 breast and lymph node cancer. “She endured chemo, radiation, loss of her hair and fingernails," Wolfe says. "And nobody except my dad could be there with her because everybody was quarantined or isolated."

She remembers a "gut-wrenching" day that her mom and dad stood on the street looking up at Wolfe's bedroom window to get a glimpse of her and the girls.

"My mom is young and strong and beautiful and wonderful, and here was this completely sickly woman. I called my girls over and we were waving. I was sandwiched in between my parents and my kids, separated by this glass. It broke my heart because it was so intense."

Wolfe's mother ended up beating cancer — "knock on wood, she made it out." But when she tested positive for BRCA, the breast cancer gene, she advised her daughter to do the same.

Wolfe turned out to be positive as well.

The personal trainer decided immediately to have a preventive hysterectomy and double mastectomy. (Her mom had both surgeries, too.) “There was no cancer in our family, but we ran all the numbers: I'm in my late forties, and my mom had cancer, and I'm an Ashkenazi Jew. My cancer risk was at 44%. That's almost 1 in 2. I was walking around like thanking my lucky stars that I hadn't gotten cancer yet.”

She scheduled her hysterectomy for eight days later on March 21 — and the mastectomy exactly three weeks after that, on April 11. “There was no hesitation about the surgeries,” she says. “When I get something in my head, it's, let's just do it, let's move forward. And that's how I have lived my life.”

Related: Former NBC Anchor Jenna Wolfe Reveals She Had a Hysterectomy: 'I'm a Little Scared'

What she didn’t anticipate was how hard it was going to be.

“My mom sailed through the mastectomy, sailed through the hysterectomy. Not a complication, no extra pain. She took two Tylenol after the mastectomy and that was it. I was like, ‘Well, if you did it, I am going to breeze through this. I'm in tremendous shape.’ ”

Wolfe was not accustomed to feeling fragile. Known for her athleticism, workout devotion and commitment to nutrition and healthy living, she never expected to be sidelined.

“I was in excruciating pain, doubled over for 10 days," she says. "I've had really bad complications with both surgeries. So there was no correlation between the shape that I was in and how the surgeries went.”

She recalls one scary night when she was home alone with the girls.

“I started bleeding really badly, and we didn't know why. And I had to go to the ER, but nobody was here to stay home with them. And I had to leave them alone. Steph eventually came over.”

“It's been a really brutal couple of months,” she admits. “The way I see myself has always been strong, strong, strong. And I felt broken. I felt really broken and weak and tired and sluggish and sick. And I was hurting and I hated the feeling.”

As for the girls, they were by their mom’s side through it all. Wolfe says she and Gosk have always been honest with them. “The girls endured a lot of my setbacks. And what we wanted to show them — and what we keep trying to teach them — is this resiliency.

“We had a very honest conversation with them. We said, 'This is real life. Life isn't always exactly the picture you paint in your mind, but you have to be okay with whatever comes out on paper because that's your real life.' "

They stressed how much Wolfe would need their help as a single mom.

"I made them do more than they needed to do, because I wanted them to see that they had the capacity to do it," she says. “Watching your mother in pain — that has to be the most tragic thing for a child."

It's not lost on her that she had just watched her own mother suffer. "I tried not to complain ever. But yes, they were living with me and I had drains coming out of my sides and I couldn't lift anything and I was shuffling around because it was hard for me to stand up straight and walk.”

Related: Jenna Wolfe Undergoes Mastectomy After Testing Positive for BRCA Cancer Gene

She and Gosk used the same candor when telling the girls about their separation.

“If you don't freak out about something, then kids won't. And I think what I've learned through this process is how much they learn by absorbing your reaction, more than by you telling them how they should react.”

As for coparenting, ”it’s working really well,” she says. She and Gosk talk every day, and the four of them still get together often. "We're great friends and fantastic parents."

She adds that they were hesitant to go public with the news of the split. “We were just waiting for the right time to tell people because often, this is looked at as a failure. Like, ‘Oh, your marriage failed.’ But I'm like, ‘Or, maybe we figured out a way to save the family unit.’ ” She emphasizes the strength of their bond: "We still have each other and we always will."

These days, Wolfe is working on regaining her fitness. “It was really hard for me to start from scratch, because I want to go from zero to a hundred on day one." She asked her doctors for specific parameters. "If you say my heart rate can only be here, okay — but I will get it right there and make it stay there."

She adds that working out is a huge component of her mental health, something that has been suffering lately. “Having those surgeries and stripping me down emotionally and mentally and physically and not being able to work out at all meant I had no outlet," she says.

"I had the separation and I had the surgeries and I need a job and I'm home alone with the kids," she recalls. "I was like tearing myself apart. Like, I don't even feel good — how can I put myself out there to get a job or meet someone or be an amazing mom? I just felt like I was failing at every corner.”

But six weeks after her mastectomy, with her doctor's okay, she got on the stationary bike for 20 minutes. The next day, 45 minutes. By the third day she was lifting 3-lb. weights. She continues to push herself within healthy limits.

“I feel a thousand times stronger, smarter, happier, better, more likable after I work out, regardless of what I do, regardless of what stage I'm at in body transformation," she says.

“It really does give me a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. And it feels good that I have control over something. When you're at a stage in your life where I'm at right now, I need a little control over something.”

Wolfe has one more surgery to go: In August, she will get breast implants. But that's all she can see up ahead.

"I don't know where I'll be in five years. I don't know if I'll be back in news, or in sports. I don't know how the kids are going to be, or what my health will be like, or if I'll be alone."

But the journalist is glad to be finally opening up about it all. “I've not talked about this with anyone — no part of it . . . Not the pain or the recovery or the fear or the future."

"Usually people tell their story when it's over," she says. "I just know that I'm in the middle of mine.”

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