Are Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood on the Rocks After He Missed CMT Awards? It Was ‘So Unlike’ Him

She dubbed it a “girls night” on Instagram. Trisha Yearwood arrived at the CMT Awards in Austin, Texas, on April 7 with her sister, Beth Bernard . Her husband of 18 years, Garth Brooks , “is not here with me tonight because he’s probably at the bar,” she said with a laugh on the red carpet, referring to his new Nashville honky-tonk, Friends in Low Places. Later, as her sister watched in tears from the audience, Trisha accepted the June Carter Cash Humanitarian Award. “June Carter Cash was a force, and she was also married to a force. I know a little bit about a life like that,” Trisha said. “I know it wasn’t always easy, but she found ways to keep shining her own light. And she had no bigger fan than her husband, Johnny Cash. I also know a little bit about that.”

That’s one reason why Garth’s absence during such a big night was so glaring. “A lot of people were speculating that something is wrong between them,” a source exclusively tells Life & Style of the pair, who once vowed never to spend more than five days apart. “It’s so unlike Garth to ditch her like that!”

Normally, he’s her biggest fan. “I just feel lucky to be with her,” Garth — who calls his wife “the queen” and sometimes even “Mrs. Yearwood” at home — gushed at the opening of his bar on March 7. And the 62-year-old has previously confessed that he feels “dependent” on her and “helpless without her.... I don’t think she feels this way at all, but I know I do.”

No, she doesn’t. “We’re both very independent,” the “How Do I Live” singer, 59, has said, and “we don’t always get along.” During the pandemic, the superstars, who have been friends for nearly 40 years and married in 2005, worked on some of their issues because they were stuck together in isolation. “We don’t spend that much time apart anyway,” she added. “For us, it was navigating, ‘How do we stay independent? Do our own thing, feel like we run our own lives, but be a couple?’ And it’s a balance.”

Their attempts to maintain that balance may make their relationship appear unstable to outsiders, says the source. “Trisha was happy to be at the CMT Awards with her sister, even though it did raise eyebrows and made some people wonder if things were rocky between her and Garth,” says a source, noting that the pair just spent more than a year working closely to build his bar — in front of reality TV cameras. “Like anyone in a long-term relationship, sometimes she needs her space. Garth will do anything for her — even if it means staying home while she enjoys her sister time for a day or two. He just worships her and wants her to be happy.”

And they weren’t apart for long. “She’s always happy to be back by his side,” says the source, adding that separation “is not an option for them. They are truly the love of each other’s life.”