Country singer Joe Nichols first met his now-wife Heather Singleton when he was 18 years old -- but it would take 12 years for the couple to tie the knot. Their marriage has endured extreme highs and troubling lows, but through it all, love has persevered. Love is a battlefield, and the couple has emerged stronger and victorious.

Nichols and Singleton met in 1995, when the then-18-year-old aspiring singer was showing off his talents in Singleton's father's Longview, Texas, club, the Rio Palm Isle. Because of college and Nichols' emerging country music career, they didn't say "I do" until Sept. 9, 2007.

"The timing was always wrong, but in hindsight, it was probably right, because we weren't ready then," Singleton told People before the ceremony. "Now is the right time. I'm so sure, I'm not even nervous."

Nichols echoed her sentiments, calling himself "the happiest man in the world" and referring to Singleton as "the love of my life."

Their Savannah, Ga., wedding was beautifully intimate, with approximately 100 friends and family members gathered in Whitfield Chapel at the Bethesda School for Boys. After a horse-drawn carriage ride, a first dance to "First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" and a honeymoon in the Florida Keys, the couple returned to Nichols' Nashville-area home.

However, that's when the reality of promising to love and cherish one another as spouses really kicked in. Just 30 days into their marriage, Nichols checked into rehab. After that stint, he continued to struggle with alcoholism until 2008, when his family and friends held an intervention and sent the singer to an intensive, in-patient rehab program.

Add to those issues five devastating miscarriages, and you have an decade-plus marriage that has weathered an immense amount of paint and suffering. Nichols is in awe of his wife's steady commitment to him, saying, “There’s no way that Heather should still be married to me, there’s no way. It’s only by grace.”

The couple now has two daughters, Dylan River and Georgia Blue. Nichols also has a daughter, Ashelyn, from a previous relationship.

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