Tim McGraw Shares Secrets to 30-Year Marriage and Embracing Empty Nest Life

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Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are getting used to a new chapter in their lives, and the country star says it’s given them a fresh perspective on their marriage.

The couple recently celebrated 30 years together, and they’re also approaching another big milestone; both will turn 60 next year. Their family is changing, too, as their three daughters get older and start building lives of their own. Their middle daughter, 28-year-old Maggie, announced her engagement in August.

In a new interview with Esquire, McGraw reflected on what it’s like to reach this stage of life after decades of raising a family and building careers together. “We’ve lived a lot of life,” the singer said. “So we’re going in now, at 59, you’re stepping into another [chapter].”

With Maggie engaged and their youngest daughter, 24-year-old Audrey, already out of the house, McGraw and Hill are looking ahead to becoming grandparents someday.

“Our middle daughter’s engaged,” McGraw said, “so sooner or later they’ll all be married and there will be grandkids. So we’re stepping into a new phase of life.”

Although the couple have enjoyed having more time to themselves, McGraw admitted that the transition wasn’t easy at first. After Audrey moved out, the sudden quiet around the house took some getting used to, particularly for Hill.

“Your whole life’s planned around, ‘Alright, we’re up at 6, we’re taking the kids to school, they get out at 3’ — that whole cacophony of stuff that happens when you have kids. When all that goes, there’s a quietness that’s sort of a, ‘What do I do with my mornings?'” he recalled. “… That lasted about six months.”

Eventually, though, the two found a way to enjoy their new routine. Instead of looking at an empty house as something they were missing, they began treating it like a honeymoon they never got to have.

McGraw and Hill tied the knot in October 1996, having already found success in country music. Their first daughter, Gracie, arrived in May 1997, meaning they became parents less than a year into their marriage.

Now, with their daughters grown, they have more opportunities to enjoy time together without the demands of family life. “Now it’s fun when the kids come to visit, we love it when they come to visit, but after a little while we start, you know, we kinda like being alone, a little,” McGraw quipped. “We’ve made it fun, by ourselves.”

Having more time together has also given McGraw a chance to reflect on what has helped his marriage to Hill last through so many different stages of life. “The beauty, I think, in a long marriage is you get the chance to fall in love with a new person every so often, because people change,” McGraw said.

“You’ll hear a lot of times, people go through a divorce or a separation, and they go, ‘You changed.’ Well, we all change. What you have to be committed to is, ‘Yeah, we’re changing, but we’re falling in love with the person we’re turning into every time we change.'”

He emphasized that couples need to make time to reconnect and remember what brought them together in the first place. “You gotta have that foundation, and you gotta always go back to it,” he added. “The longer you wait to go back to it, the further away it gets, and you can get to a point where it’s unreachable.”

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This story was originally published by Parade on Oct 30, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Source: Entertainment