Sara Evans & Jay Barker Reconcile

Sara Evans and husband Jay Barker have gotten back together!

In the first episode of her new podcast “Diving in Deep with Sara Evans,” she shared, “We’re so happy now, but I don’t want anyone to think that I'm advocating staying in a relationship where you are ever, in your gut, you know that you need to exit the situation. Every woman needs to follow her gut on that and do what is best for her. I believe and I hope that I’ve done that.”

Their reconciliation even inspired her song “Pride,” which centers on their ups and downs.

Evans had filed for divorce in August 2021, but it was officially dismissed last year, according to court papers obtained by People magazine.

In January 2022, Jay was arrested and charged with felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after he allegedly attempted to use his own vehicle to hit the car that Sara was in.

Months later, he entered a “best interest” plea to a reckless endangerment charge and reportedly got one year of probation.

Sara opened up about what led to the incident, revealing that they got into an argument “because he wasn’t getting his way.”

After their lunch, Sara and one of her daughters went to a friend’s bonfire. As she was leaving, she saw that Jay was waiting outside of her friend’s house.

She admitted, “It really scared me, and it scared all of us, especially my child that was with me. So, the friend of ours was driving me. We were getting ready to pull into the driveway, and… [Barker] had a verbal altercation with my child, who had never seen that side of him, ever. And it scared the sh*t out of her.”

“Then he jumped in his truck, and he [was] sort of backing up at a very high speed,” Sara went on. “I knew Jay, so I didn’t feel the same way that my child felt. My child thought he was gonna plow our car down, that he was backing up towards our car, and that she was about to watch something horrific, or at the very least, an accident, which would have been his truck hitting my side of the car, where I was in the front seat. She was terrified.”

Sara’s daughter eventually called the cops, who arrived after Barker left the scene.

A warrant was then issued for Barker’s arrest. When he returned home, he was taken into custody and spent a night behind bars.

Sara revealed, “I just felt so ashamed and so stupid, and my child was so mad. But you know that she was standing there thinking, ‘He’s about to hit my mom with a truck.’ I don’t know how close he got honestly, and I don’t know what it looks like to her. But I heard her scream so loud,” Evans said. “I really did not think that he was trying to hit our car. I think he was trying to back up as fast as he could to see who I was in the car with, to see if I was with another man. And my child thought, ‘He’s gonna run into them.’”

Following Barker’s arrest, Evans just shut down mentally.

She said, “I was just getting call after call after call after call, and I was like, ‘I cannot believe this is happening to me and my children again. I’ve lost the love of my life. He’s just gorgeous, he’s funny, we have so much in common. We feel the same about everything, raising kids, family structures, politics, religion, everything. We just love each other. We’re best friends.”

A few months later, the couple made an effort to work things out after he reached out to her via text, saying, “Everybody says that I shouldn’t contact you, but you are still my wife.”

She noted, “A lot of women will judge me and want to judge me. When he said, ‘But you are still my wife,’ I don’t know. I just melted because I thought, ‘I am still your wife, and we can talk if we want to. We’re both adults. So, I texted him back and I think I just said something short and sweet like, ‘How are you? I’m on the road,’ and we sort of tiptoed back to each other.”

Sara made it clear that they needed therapy and marriage counseling if there was any chance of a reconciliation.

She explained, “I just did not want to divorce again and start over. I just pictured myself being alone and missing him and thinking, ‘We could’ve tried harder.’ But it took me filing for divorce, I think, for him to realize, ‘Oh sh*t, she’s serious. This is it...’ Some people have marriage problems that are like, they fight all the time. We didn’t fight all the time. He fought me. When he was in his low spots, he fought against me, he pushed me away, pushed my love away. So, every situation is different. I would never encourage anybody to stay in a dangerous situation.”

After some time, her daughter was able to move on from the traumatizing incident. Sara said, “My three children have forgiven him and we’re all back together. Every day we thank God that we didn’t split.”