Jenna Bush Hager Speaks Candidly About How She Viewed Marriage Growing Up, Admits She Dreamt “About The Wedding, As Opposed To The Actual Life”

Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb shared a candid discussion about love, marriage, and everything in between during Friday’s (Oct. 13) broadcast of Today With Hoda & Jenna.

The co-hosts were discussing Cher‘s recent interview in which she opened up about her year-long relationship with her boyfriend, musician Alexander “A.E.” Edwards, who is 40 years her junior. One statement Cher made particularly resonated with Kotb and Bush Hager: “We’ve been together a year, and if it was just a year, it would have been worth it. I’ve had the best time.”

“Please make that a bumper sticker,” Kotb exclaimed. “That’s like the best message in the world.”

Bush Hager agreed, saying that as a “serial monogamist” herself, this is something that she wants to instill in her daughters as they grow up.

“I really want my girls to know things can be short. I mean, I was a serial monogamist, I am, because I’m now married for a long time,” she explained. “And I want to make sure that my girls feel comfortable and confident enough to know that not everything is marriage material.”

She later recalled how much she used to fantasize about her future husband and wedding when she was young. Bush Hager recalled one particular instance in the third grade when she sang “Matchmaker” during a voice competition using a bridal magazine as her prop.

She admitted she would later “stare at the magazine and dream about a boy liking me, or the wedding, as opposed to the actual life.”

“I never dreamt of the wedding,” Kotb later admitted. The Today Show host explained that her brain never “worked in that way” and she was never especially “concerned” about the wedding details, which Bush Hager said “was a good thing.”

Bush Hager candidly admitted, “Oh I did… I think it’s because nobody liked me, that was my fantasy. When will the person like me, when will I be chosen?”

She later expressed relief that, while she could have made “a couple of choices” throughout her life, she fortunately “married well” in her partner of 15 years, Henry.

Today with Jenna and Hoda airs on weekdays at 10/9c on NBC.