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Thomas Rhett reveals that his relationship with wife Lauren Akins – often described as an ideal marriage – nearly “imploded.”
“We were becoming famous at arguably the hardest moment in our personal lives,” the country star told Us Weekly. “Adopting [Willa Gray] and getting pregnant at the same time while having to be in Uganda for a year with me traveling back and forth was so challenging.”
In 2017, the couple announced that they were in the process of adopting a child from Africa and also pregnant. Per Ugandan law, the two had to foster the little girl for a year in the East African country.
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The journey to parenthood was exhausting.
“I’m not going to lie, there were many nights where I was like, ‘I don’t know if this paper is ever going to get signed or if we’re going to hammer down that meeting we need to have.’ Prayer got us through.”
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The couple flew between Uganda and the United States nearly a dozen times throughout the process.
“I’d go to Uganda and be husband and dad, and then go to America and be like, ‘OK, shows and music.’ I was internally imploding, and so was Lauren. We’d both come to these breaking points [feeling like] something has to give. It was not a fun time in our marriage.”
But the couple persevered.
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“Giving up was not an option,” Rhett said, of making his marriage work with Lauren, who he’s known since they were kids. “That thought has never crossed my mind or Lauren’s. With me being a fixer and Lauren being stubborn, we made it work. The easiest thing to do is quit. But when you don’t and you keep grinding it out, you’ll inevitably become stronger.”
“I’m so grateful we had to go through that because now we have a full bag of tools to use the next time something hard [happens],” the “Die a Happy Man” singer explained.
Rhett, who married Lauren when they both were 22 in 2012, is proud to talk about his marital struggles and strip away the stigma that he and his wife are the perfect couple that social media users often dub them to be.
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“At 26, it was nerve-racking to portray anything that was less than ‘couple goals’ on Instagram. Now there’s no pressure to pretend we’re [something] we’re not. We are normal people who deal with the same stuff everybody else deals with,” Rhett said.
“One of my favorite things to do is talk about how hard marriage can be and how hard it is to be a dad and raise children to be good people,” he said of parenting his four daughters: Willa Gray, 8, Ada James, 6, Lennon Love, 4 and Lillie Carolina, 2.
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“There are days that are easier than others and moments of pure joy, and there’s a lot of days that suck. I feel like I have some wisdom to share with younger people so they don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
Rhett says being “complete honesty at all costs” is how to get through a rough patch. “Darkness cannot live where the light is. As for younger artists trying to decide, ‘Do I want to get married at 22? What will this do for my career?’ If they’re your person, marry ’em and own it. Make that person your centerpiece, because that’s your rock for the rest of your life.”
