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Jill Martin tearfully explains why she called her fiancé 16 months after their breakup

“I said, ‘If you walk out this door, we will never speak again,’” she recalls telling him on her TODAY All Day special, “The New Rules for Finding Love."

Jill Martin is getting candid about her second engagement to her boyfriend, Erik Brooks.

In a preview clip for her TODAY All Day special "The New Rules for Finding Love," Martin reveals what led to her and Brooks calling it quits in 2020 after they had initially gotten engaged the previous year.

25th Annual QVC Presents "FFANY Shoes On Sale" Gala
Jill Martin (L) and boyfriend Erik Brooks attend the 25th Annual QVC "FFANY Shoes on Sale" Gala in New York City.Eugene Gologursky / Getty Images for QVC

“It’s hard for me to even discuss,” she told digital creator Christina “Tinx” Najjar and relationship expert Tracy McMillan over drinks. "But I think it is helpful, so I will discuss it."

Martin explained that she and Brooks began "fighting all the time" at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Even though she said that he's a "wonderful human being" who "shares the same moral values" as her, the TODAY lifestyle and commerce contributor said that she soon realized that they weren't on the same page anymore.

"I was not picking my battles — and I'm not blaming myself, OK? But my stuff at that time and his stuff did not match up, and I wasn't willing to change the way I reacted to the stuff," she said. "So he basically said things like, 'This is not going to work. This is not going to work.' And I was like, 'He'll never leave me.'"

However, Martin soon realized just how much her fiancé was done with their relationship.

"One day, he was like, 'I can't fight anymore.' And I was really bad for a really long time. It caused me to re-evaluate what was important to me," she said.

The pair ended up taking a break after Martin gave Brooks an ultimatum.

"I said, 'If you walk out this door, we will never speak again,'" she said while tearing up.

But after spending more than a year apart, Martin knew that she didn't want to be with anyone else but Brooks. She said she ended up changing the way that she reacted to things and what she prioritized to be important.

“I called him after 16 months,” she said.

"So I called him and I was like, 'You know, you're in my dreams. And I think we're making a life mistake and this is why,'" Martin shared. "And he's like, 'Well, what would it look like?'"

Martin joked that she didn't leave any detail out and kept talking to Brooks on the phone for almost 12 hours.

In November 2021, she shared in an essay for TODAY that they got engaged again in the Bahamas. And now, Martin says that she knows exactly what she's supposed to do with her life and she's "proud" of who she is as a person.

"I am on a path that, like, if you walked away and you said to somebody, 'I didn’t really like that, Jill,' I’d be, like, 'Oh, that’s strange. I thought we had a really nice conversation. She must just be having a bad day,’" Martin laughed. "Or if somebody said, 'Oh, she’s ugly.' Somebody said that on Instagram yesterday: 'I don’t like the way you look.' And I was, like, 'Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s cool. Like, you do you. I know the path that I’m on.'"

In her essay for TODAY shortly after she got engaged again, Martin shared how she and Brooks worked through their problems.

"I truly believe life is not about the times you fall down, but rather, how you get back up," she wrote. "We all make mistakes. We all need to say I’m sorry. We all need to improve. I try to be a better, kinder person every single day. The real work in life is the work you put in to persevere — that’s what matters. I now know that’s true for relationships, too."

Watch "The New Rules for Finding Love" on TODAY All Day April 4 at 11:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. ET.