A Christmas miracle! Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds proposed to his wife, Aja Volkman, over the Christmas holiday after the now reconciled pair separated in April 2018.
In an Instagram update from Volkman, the Nico Vega lead singer posed in front of a lit Christmas tree with her left hand placed over her mouth and flashed her stunning engagement ring. The photo was accompanied by an extensive statement, in which she detailed the couple’s journey to getting to this stage in their relationship since rekindling.
“The last two years have been transformative to say the least. I’ve never caused so much hurt or been so hurt by another human in my life,” the musician wrote Thursday, December 26. “It took us a long time to really see each other. We weren’t reckless at all. In fact, we were so careful that we didn’t do what we needed to do. We didn’t listen to who we were. We loved each other at the expense of everything. Two different backgrounds, and practically two different generations.”
Volkman continued, “It was a wild story that just kept getting more wild as time passed. We wrote love songs, and we got married. Then came children. We were both emotional and driven and also hard on ourselves. We went through a whirlwind of successes and failures and we held each other tight because it was scary. But we also suffocated each other. We didn’t know ourselves well enough to maintain the strength from within. And it all began to crumble.”
Volkman, who shares daughters Arrow, 7, twins Coco, 2, and Gia, 2, and son Valentine, 2 months, with Reynolds, said that the formerly estranged couple “were distorted mirrors of each other” and they “fell apart.” Their fallout even affected their eldest child, who Volkman claimed was “suffering.”
Volkman admitted that she went through some “deep soul searching,” amid their initial split, but she also experienced the “darkest thoughts that would eventually turn to light” when they reconciled seven months later.
“I just couldn’t go back to what we were. I told him that we would have to start again. He agreed,” she recalled. “Tonight, we put our kids to bed and began to clean up the mess of the day. I could see that he was nervous but I didn’t know why. He got on one knee and before he could open his mouth I began to cry. Loaded tears that held nearly 10 years of growth. The answer has always been ‘yes,’ even before we knew what that meant.”
Reynolds, 32, and Volkman, 32, who tied the knot in 2011, announced their separation via Twitter in April 2018. “After 7 beautiful years together, Aja and I’s marriage has come to an end,” the 32-year-old “Thunder” crooner wrote at the time. “Our children continue to be the most important thing in our lives, & we will continue to coparent them with all our love. I ask that you please respect our privacy at this time as we work through this as a family.”
After seven months apart, the pair got back together. When Reynolds opened up about the duo’s reconciliation exclusively to Us Weekly in May, he revealed that the separation ultimately strengthened their relationship.
“I think life is not perfect and [if] you admit that and you try to grow and rebuild… It’s like breaking a bone,” he said at the time. “You break a bone and they say it’s stronger, so yeah. I do think so.”
