Country stars Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires are going their separate ways.
Isbell, 45, filed for divorce from Shires, 41, on Dec. 15, two months before the couple was set to celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary, according to court records seen by PEOPLE.
Isbell and Shires — who share daughter Mercy, 8 — have been a musical force together since tying the knot in February 2013; Shires plays violin and sings backup for Isbell’s band, the 400 Unit, while playing guitar for her country supergroup The Highwomen.
Although they both celebrated their 10-year anniversary on social media in February 2023 (“Every day I wake up and fall in love with you all over again,” Isbell wrote on Instagram), the couple has been open about the cracks in their marriage caused by Isbell’s 2020 album release. Reunions.
The couple’s marital feud was even documented in a 2023 documentary Running with eyes closedwhich featured an emotional scene in which Shires reads an email she sent to Isbell about the possibility of marriage counseling.
Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
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Amanda Shires talks candidly about the challenges of marriage and motherhood on new album: ‘Life’s Not Easy’
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a quasi-celebrity like Jason or me, everyone’s relationships are the same; there are ups and downs and there are good and bad and you just try to deal with it,” she told PEOPLE in 2022. “Life is not easy, marriage is not easy, but aren’t we lucky to be able to live?”
Isbell, who has been sober since 2012, previously opened up The New York Times in 2020 about the growing pressures during construction Reunions she made him push away everything in his life, including his wife.
“At one point I said: ‘It would be easier if someone cheated.’ Then we could say ‘You did this’ or ‘I did that’ and ‘Someone should be really sorry,’” Isbell said. “But it was more like, ‘We don’t know each other right now. We can’t speak the same language.’”
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Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires. John Shearer/ACMA2021/Getty Images Jason Isbell reflects on how the pandemic has changed his everyday life in new documentary clip (Exclusive)
In 2020, Shires moved to a hotel for 10 days because “lines were crossing” and she “needed space”, but the two eventually reconciled.
She covered their marital turmoil from her perspective in the 2022 song “Fault Lines,” telling Nashville Scene that she and Isbell were going through a difficult “breakup” during the pandemic, which she channeled into her lyrics.
“We’ve all had turmoil in our marriages, and it definitely came from a place of vulnerability,” Shires told the news outlet. “In one word, that’s how I would describe how I chose each song for the record. You have a choice to be vulnerable or not. However you manage, it’s all a matter of choice.”
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Source: HIS Education