Tim McGraw has been happily married to his wife, Faith Hill, for 23 years, spending most of those years as parents to their three girls: 23-year-old Gracie, 22-year-old Maggie, and Audrey, 18. As the couple’s youngest daughter gets ready to head off to college, the 53-year-old admits he has a lot of mixed feelings about her departure.
“It’s tough,” Tim admitted on the Today Show. “There’s a part of you that’s excited for them, and you want them to go out and conquer the world. And you certainly don’t want to feel like they don’t need you anymore. However, in these times, it’s a little different, because not knowing what’s going to happen with college with our youngest daughter, for her it’s not been so good, but for us it’s been sort of a blessing, because you never see them that much.”
Tim might have one of the most successful careers in country music, but he remains convinced that his biggest purpose in life is to be a husband to Faith and a father to his three daughters.
“I certainly remember that moment when I met my wife, that’s for sure,” Tim shared. “But I think for everyone, those things happen when you realize what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and what you’re here for. The fathers out there can appreciate the first time you hold your child, is certainly the moment that you realize that anything else that you do is nothing until this moment.”
Not that Tim isn’t focused on his music career. The Louisiana native just released Here on Earth, which was recorded after his co-headlining Soul2Soul Tour with Faith, mostly because he knew he was singing at his best then, thanks to his wife.
“I started the process of this album at the end of the second leg of Faith and I’s Soul2Soul Tour,” Tim recalled. “It was sort of on purpose that I did that, because I found that the times that I spend working with Faith, especially touring with Faith, that my records got exponentially better, because having to sing with her every night, is like a NASCAR car trying to keep up with an Indy car. She’s truly in my opinion one of the greatest singers that ever sang a song.
“And then I get that look from her sometimes during the middle of a show. ‘You’re faltering a bit, son. You need to keep up,'” he continued. “The point is, she makes me better. I wanted to put together a 30,000 foot view of life, where you can dive into these little vignettes that are really interesting.”