Keith Urban has no idea where he would be without Nicole Kidman, but it likely wouldn’t be where he is today. The “Straight Line” singer recalled how Kidman saved his life, soon after they married in 2006.

“We got married in June 2006 and barely four months into our marriage, my addictions that I’d done really nothing about, blew our marriage to smithereens,” Urban shared (via People). “And I went into the Betty Ford Center for three months. Four months into a marriage I’m in rehab for three months. I had no idea what was going to happen to us.”

Fortunately, Kidman stuck by Urban, even while he was in rehab, a fact that seems to still surprise Urban.

“And if you want to see what love in action really looks like, give that a whirl,” Urban said “Nic pushed through every negative voice, I’m sure even some of her own. And she chose love. And here we are tonight, 18 years later.”

The couple met while both appearing at an event in California in 2005. Urban was instantly smitten with the actress.

“I was trying to play it cool, but inside I felt like I’d snuck into the royal ball simply because Nic had such a truly otherworldly aura about her,” Urban said.

“I felt a bit like I was meeting a real-life princess,” he added. “And despite all of that, I did manage to get her phone number on a tiny piece of paper.”

The Grand Ole Opry member might ahve gotten her phone number, but it took him a while to work up the nerve to actually call her.

“I was scared. I was nervous to call her,” Urban recalled. “I did, as you probably figured out, pluck up the courage to finally call her.”

Urban has been open about all of the ways Kidman helped him, especially as he battled his addictions.

“It took marrying Nic to learn all about that, learn about how to communicate, really communicate, properly, speak, say things,” Urban previously told Variety. “I could write a good love song, but I was terrible at relationships, because I didn’t really know. It wasn’t my mom and dad’s fault. They did a great job raising us. They just, like anybody else, you can’t give away what you don’t have. I’m glad that our girls are in a very different environment, where we talk about things all the time. It’s really important.”

Urban not only praises Kidman for her influence in his life, but the life of their two daughters, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret, as well.

“She’s an extraordinary mum, she really, really is,” Urban told Universal Music Group. “Those girls are very, very lucky, and I feel very lucky that the children I should have in this world happen to be with Nic. I don’t know anything about raising kids and Nic does, and that comes in extremely — it’s really made for an experience I wouldn’t have had without that. Her patience, her recognizing them as people and not just little kids is really extraordinary. Her attention to honoring their feelings and listening to them right from day one – really being attentive to that is not how I was raised at all, so it’s really beautiful to see.”

Urban just announced the release of “Go Home W U,” a duet with Lainey Wilson, on Friday, May 3. Pre-save “Go Home W U” here. Find all of Urban’s music and upcoming shows at KeithUrban.com.