Country music is all about doing it big, and when it comes to love, few musical genres have produced iconic ballads and legendary couples like country music has. Sadly, for every couple who makes it, there seem to be so many who don't.
It seems like it's hard enough for celebrities to make a relationship work with all the demands that their careers bring. There's a lot of travel, and you often find yourself working with brand-new people regularly. It makes sense that if you're always meeting people, you have more opportunities to form a romantic connection with other people.
Still other relationships have ended due to substance abuse or other domestic problems. That's not unique to country music by any means, but it has definitely inspired a song or two.
More from LittleThings: Dolly Parton Told Christians To Stop Judging Gay People: 'If You're Gay, You're Gay'
For every Tim McGraw and Faith Hill who make it work forever, there's a Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert who just don't, for whatever reason. Here's a look back at 10 of the most legendary couples from country music — and the details behind why their relationships just didn't work out.
Reba McEntire and Narvel Blackstock
Reba married her manager-turned-husband in 1989, after working with him since 1980. They have a son, Shelby, together. Fans were truly stunned when the pair announced their divorce in 2015. In a statement, a spokesperson for the couple said, "Despite this being the end of their marriage, they continue to support each other. They have worked together for 35 years and will continue to do so."
But what went wrong? Reba had been criticized for starting a relationship with Narvel so soon after her divorce from her first husband, Charlie Battles, but it soon seemed that she and Narvel really had something special together. But then, after 26 years of marriage, Narvel surprised everyone (including Reba) by filing for divorce … and was publicly dating someone new a month after he did so.
Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert
Much has been written about Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert's relationship. These two also had a bit of a whirlwind courtship after meeting while they were both in relationships with other people. After they got married in 2011, everyone assumed that they were the real deal — but then they surprised fans by announcing their divorce in 2015.
They spent months denying reports that their marriage was struggling prior to the divorce announcement. In their statement, they wrote, "This is not the future we envisioned and it is with heavy hearts that we move forward separately. We are real people, with real lives, with real families, friends and colleagues. Therefore, we kindly ask for privacy and compassion concerning this very personal matter."
Rumors flew that Blake cheated on Miranda while they were married, quickly followed by additional rumors that it was Miranda who cheated. While neither Blake nor Miranda has officially commented on the reports, Blake did seem to share his thoughts via Twitter after it emerged that Miranda may have been begun dating someone before she and Blake split up.
Garth Brooks and Sandy Mahl
Old-school country music fans will likely recall the total shock they felt when it came out that Garth Brooks and his wife of 14 years, Sandy Mahl, were getting divorced. They have three daughters together, and since their marriage predated Garth's rise to fame, everyone just assumed they'd last.
Their divorce came five years before Garth married his current wife, country singer Trisha Yearwood, but Garth actually met Trisha about a year after he and Sandy got married. "I had been married 13 months when I met her," he recalls. "When someone said, ‘What’d you think when I met her?’ I said, ‘I felt like I just met my wife,’ which is weird, right? But the girls’ mother and I were married in a church, in front of our families."
George Jones and Tammy Wynette
Ooh, boy. George Jones and Tammy Wynette really did have a legendary relationship … and a legendary divorce. Theirs was the third marriage for each, and it definitely wasn't charmed.
After meeting in a recording studio in Nashville, they ended up on the road together and formed a friendship. They got married on February 16, 1969, and had a daughter together. Their careers ended up crisscrossing, and by the time they divorced six years later, they were definitely entangled.
They first separated, reunited, and then decided to divorce for good. Tammy once said, "George is one of those people who can’t tolerate happiness. If everything is right, there is something in him that makes him destroy it, and destroy me with it."
Shania Twain and Robert John 'Mutt' Lange
A lot of people might remember the details of this split: Shania found out that her husband of 16 years was cheating on her with her best friend, Anne Thiébaud. A few years later, Shania announced that she was in a relationship with Anne's ex-husband, and now the pair are happily married.
The shock of Shania's marriage ending also came with more news: After three blockbuster albums and her successful crossover from country star to a mainstream performer, Shania had lost the ability to sing. It took her 15 years to recover her voice.
Kenny Chesney and Renée Zellweger
I think just about everyone who was around in the early to mid-2000s remembers these two! Country singer Kenny Chesney and actress Renée Zellweger surprised many when they met in January 2005, got married in May, and then divorced four months later in September. Curiously, Renée cited "the miscommunication of the objective of their marriage at the start" as the reason for her annulment request.
Since then, neither has spoken too much about the relationship. Kenny once said, "I panicked, there’s no doubt about it, did the only thing I knew to do — I ran. I pushed her away … I didn’t have any clue as to what true marriage meant. I was so used to committing to one thing — music — and then I had to totally commit to a second thing, marriage. I didn’t know how to commit to both of them."
Trisha Yearwood and Robert Reynolds
Long before Trisha Yearwood married Garth Brooks, she was married to her second husband, Robert Reynolds. She and Robert were married for five years before parting ways in 1999, and tabloids immediately began linking her to Garth (though the two wouldn't start dating until the following year).
At the time, Trisha seemed ambivalent about divorcing: "Since I do hang on to the past with my fingernails, divorce was difficult. It’s a serious decision involving someone you’re tied to emotionally, so it’s hard to move on. And it’s easy to drag things out so you don’t have to face people talking about you. Then, after the marriage is over, you question yourself. You wonder if something’s wrong with you — which is pretty much where I’ve been. But I know I’m a good person. Even though I have no clue what my future holds on a personal level, I’m feeling good about things."
While her divorce surprised quite a few people, news of her new relationship with Garth the following year definitely did not.
Trace and Rhonda Adkins
Trace and Rhonda Adkins got married in 1997 and made it all the way to 2014 before Rhonda filed for divorce. The year was a notoriously hard one for Trace, as he spent time in rehab and suffered the loss of his father within the same two-month span of time.
Their spokesperson issued a statement that read, "Trace and Rhonda are united in ensuring that their children’s interests come first. They thank everyone for respecting their privacy as they work through this personal matter together."
This was Trace's third marriage, and many thought it might be his last. The two met through Rhonda's job at Arista Records, and she helped propel the singer to stardom.
LeAnn Rimes and Dean Sheremet
LeAnn and Dean were high school sweethearts who got married very young (18 and 20). Their marriage lasted from 2002 to 2009, when LeAnn began a relationship with actor Eddie Cibrian, whom she would go on to marry.
Dean didn't speak out about how the relationship ended for years, but in 2015 he shed some light on the slow demise of their marriage. "I was a professional dancer. She was a superstar. I knew that one of us had to sacrifice something to have a healthy marriage. And that was my goal. As much as I wanted to be successful, I wanted a family more."
He also said that though LeAnn had a relationship with Eddie while still married, the marriage he and LeAnn had together already hadn't been working: "As it went on, there were a lot of animosities that built up. I felt like I was never having my needs met so there was fighting. And I was so intertwined in managing her career that I didn't know how to make the distinction between husband and boss, husband and partner, husband and manager…I was husband, father, friend, lover, manager. There were so many hats and I didn't know what hat to wear when."
Still, though, he did acknowledge that LeAnn's relationship with Eddie surprised him. "Never in a million years did I think something like that would have happened. The need for me in her life was so strong. There were things she couldn't do without me. She had her own phone but never used it. People would call me to get to her. Everything went through me."
Jason Aldean and Jessica Ussery
Jason was married to his first wife, Jessica Ussery, for 12 years before the two split up. The news came as a surprise to many, because they had been together for so long. "This is a really tough time for my entire family. Jessica and I have been together since we were teenagers. We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs over the years as we grew up together as a couple."
However, news of the divorce did follow a bit of scandal. Jason was photographed kissing former American Idol contestant Brittany Kerr, whom he has since married, and that seemed to set off a chain of events that led to the end of his marriage to Jessica.
