Several years ago, Gwyneth Paltrow infamously brought the phrase ‘conscious uncoupling’ into the public vernacular when she used it to describe her surprise divorce from Chris Martin.
And while the actress faced a lot of ridicule for her choice of words, they still resonated with former The Block star Jess Eva – who likes to joke that she and ex-partner Norm Hogan are “the less attractive, suburban version of that”.
“Norm and I split three years ago now,” Jess tells New Idea exclusively.
“But we still love one another, we’re still the best of friends, and we are still family.”
Jess and Norm haven’t hidden the end of their long-term engagement (they never married), but they haven’t broadcast it from the rooftops either.
“There’s no drama, but we both thought it was a bit ‘up ourselves’ to publicly announce we’d separated at the time,” Jess, 40, says.
She adds that she and Norm, 47, are ready to talk about their relationship status now, as a way of clarifying things, and putting it out there that the end of a relationship doesn’t have to be nasty.
Jess and Norm met outside a nightclub 12 years ago, when she asked him for a bite of his pizza.
He agreed to share – in exchange for her phone number! They soon welcomed son Freddie, now 11, and daughter Matilda, eight.
In 2018, Jess and Norm signed up for The Block, where they became a popular couple before walking away with $209,000 in profit.
Last year, they returned to our screens with their own hit Channel Nine home-renovation show, Budget Battlers, which they are currently working on the second season of.
Despite going through so much together, Jess reveals that, in the year or so leading up to their separation, she and Norm “were fighting a lot”.
She adds that there was no one sticking point, or that it had anything to do with them suddenly becoming household names after The Block.
“It was really just an accumulation of small things and pressures,” Jess says.
“One day, we were both sitting in our backyard, having a beer in front of the fire pit, and I just said, ‘Norm, I love you, but we can’t keep going like this.’ He said, ‘I love you too – and I agree.’”
After a long and emotional discussion, Jess and Norm mutually agreed they “wanted to keep loving each other” – but as best friends.
“The only thing that has changed about how we feel about each other is our relationship status,” builder Norm explains.
But with two young children to consider, figuring out what their own version of a ‘conscious uncoupling’ looked like took some figuring out.
They still share their home in Sydney but have their own bedrooms.
“I’m in Victoria for a week or two at a time every couple of weeks to help look after my parents,” Norm explains.
“But when I’m in Sydney, I stay with Jess and the kids.”
Initially, Jess says she and Norm spent about “four hours” figuring out how to tell Freddie and Matilda about the split.
“We were pooping ourselves but eventually, we sat them down and said that there’s two kinds of divorces,” Jess explains.
“There’s bad divorce where it can get mean or there’s fighting – or there’s ‘best friending’. Then I said, ‘Daddy and I have decided we want to try best friending.’”
The kids were so unfazed by the news, “they ran outside to play basketball before we’d even finished explaining,” Jess says.
Today, Jess says that, if people are curious about their dynamic, they need to “check us out on the first season of Budget Battlers”.
As for dating, neither are looking for anyone right now. But if Jess was to meet someone “amazing”, Norm says he’d be “stoked” for her.
There are some dating ground rules, though!
“Whoever he dates has to want to have a beer with us and be open to being my friend,” Jess says. “There can’t be any jealousy.”
“For me, a life without Norm in it isn’t one I want to live, and he feels the same.
“Our relationship might not be conventional, but it works for us.”
