Julianne Hough and Husband Brooks Laich Separate After Almost 3 Years of Marriage

It’s over. Julianne Hough and Brooks Laich are separating nearly three years after they got married in July 2017. The former couple announced they were breaking up in a statement Julianne, 31, and Brooks, 36, released on Friday, May 29.

Longest Divorces: See Which Famous Couples Took Their Time Breaking Up

“We have lovingly and carefully taken the time we have needed to arrive at our decision to separate,” the duo said, according to People. “We share an abundance of love and respect for one another and will continue to lead with our hearts from that place. We kindly request your compassion and respect for our privacy moving forward.”

Unfortunately, the pair have been having “marriage woes” for a while now, a source told In Touch Weekly in January. The Dancing With the Stars pro dancer and her hubby “matured into different people,” the insider noted. “Brooks is still coming to terms with his hockey career being over. He’s working on finding himself. Being a sports player, with set goals, I think he struggled to understand Julianne’s free-spirited nature.”

See Celebrity Couples Who Fell Madly in Love at First Sight

Before they broke up, the two spouses were thinking about starting a family together. In Brooks’ podcast, “How Men Think with Brooks Laich & Gavin DeGraw,” he revealed his wife started IVF so they could have a baby once they were ready.

“She has endometriosis — which could complicate pregnancy — it doesn’t mean it will, but it could — and so the smarter thing for us to do is freeze some of her eggs and if we need this as a backup plan in two years or three years from now, whenever we want to start having kids and maybe we can’t, we have a back-up plan,” the athlete explained in June 2019.

But sadly, the two weren’t able to get on the same page about a lot of things. Another insider told Life & Style that Julianne and Brooks “want different things in life” and that was the reason why they separated. “They’ve had so many ups and downs, but they also have very different ways of dealing with them. Julianne is an open book. Brooks was OK with that in the beginning, but it’s gotten to be too much.”

It seems like Julianne’s whole family will feel the effects of the split, especially her brother, Derek Hough. “He’s awesome. We are very, very close,” Derek, 35, told Closer Weekly in August 2019. “We get along fantastic. He is an amazing man.”

But now that the Safe Haven star is separating from her partner, nothing will be the same. We just hope Brooks and Julianne can still be friends.