Chris + Kelly Lynn Janson — Country’s Greatest Love Stories

You don’t have to look any further than Chris Janson‘s music to know how he feels about his wife. The singer-songwriter’s tune ”Holdin’ Her,” the third single off of his debut album, Buy Me a Boat, is the story of the things he loves most in life: his wife, Kelly Lynn Janson, and their kids.

At the beginning of the song’s music video, Chris Janson shares the couple’s “origin story,” if you will: ”I saw my wife for the first time nine years ago and called it right off the bat; I said I was gonna marry her,” he recalls. “Three years later, I got the opportunity, and I did it.”

Janson’s wife deserves a good amount of the credit for the artist’s recent successes: She was the one who pushed him to release his breakout single, “Buy Me a Boat,” independently on iTunes, without a label’s backing.

“She pushed me as my manager, my partner and my best friend,” Janson tells radio personality Bob Kingsley. “She motivated me to do it and go through with it.”

The Jansons are parents to four children, two they had together and two from Kelly Janson’s previous marriage. Chris Janson lovingly refers to the latter two as his “bonus kids.”

“I didn’t know what life was about until I got married and walked into a house that was already a home with kids in it — my bonus kids,” he says in his “Holdin’ Her” music video. “And then, shortly thereafter, God blessed me with two more babies, and for whatever reason, I became the luckiest man alive.”

Janson and his wife got married on July 4, 2010. The singer has been very vocal about the importance of family in his life, telling The Boot that he “just love[s] being a dad more than anything.”