Kelsea Ballerini Recalls Sleeping on the Couch ‘Many a Night’ amid Marriage Issues with Morgan Evans

Kelsea Ballerini is reflecting on the painful moments that led to her split from fellow country star Morgan Evans.

The “Blindsided” singer, 29, is opening up about her divorce — and her current relationship status — in an upcoming episode of the podcast Call Her Daddy.

In a clip from the episode shared exclusively with PEOPLE, Ballerini tells host Alexandra Cooper that her relationship with Evans, 37, “took work for a long time,” and recalls the nights she spent sleeping on the couch in the midst of a fight.

“There were separations, there was years of couples therapy. There was like, many a night of sleeping on the couch,” she says. “I don’t think it was the first night, but it was a night where I was like, this is not what I want.”

She continues: “I slept on the couch the night before the CMAs and I remember I went to rehearsal at the arena and texting him and being like, ‘I’ll just see you at the carpet.'”

Though Ballerini did not reveal which CMA show she was talking about, the story echoes lyrics featured on her new song “Blindsided,” in which she sings about “a big fight” right before an unnamed “big show” in 2019.

“I slept on the couch and then the next night you put on your suit/I put on a smile and sang about how it’s okay to cry, dying inside,” she sings on the track, a likely reference to her performance of “homecoming queen?”

When asked by Cooper why she slept on the couch, Ballerini explains that her marriage was plagued with “such a sense of disconnection,” and that she and Evans, who married in 2017, would often go long stretches without seeing each other.

“We hadn’t seen each other, there was a lack of effort to see each other. I was getting resentful because any time we did see each other, I felt like I was carrying that load, and I was tired,” she says. “I was just tired of showing up in that way all the time and not feeling like I was seen or matched.”

She continues: “And then I was also tired from like, traveling all the time and giving so much of myself because that’s what I want to do to honor my career, too. And I think I just felt really depleted and not understood.”

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In a trailer for the episode, which drops on Wednesday, Ballerini further explains to Cooper that their split did indeed get “nasty” — and that she took issue with a ballad he released that implied he was blindsided by the end of their marriage.

RELATED VIDEO: Kelsea Ballerini Files for Divorce from Morgan Evans: ‘Deeply Difficult Decision’

“As he’s putting out a song about being blindsided, he’s taking half the house that he didn’t pay for,” Ballerini revealed. “How was I married to this person for this long and I had no idea that that bit of character was tucked within that human being?”

The “I Quit Drinking” singer filed for divorce from Evans in August after nearly five years of marriage, and their split was finalized in November.

Ballerini — who was just 23 when she got engaged — told Cooper that she “didn’t want to have a wedding,” and had soured on the idea of marriage thanks in part to her own parents’ divorce.

“I swore I would never get married,” she said. “I think he loved me more at 23 and I love me more at 29.”

Though Ballerini — who has been linked to Outer Banks star Chase Stokes in recent months — said she’s still figuring out how to navigate dating (“I’ve never really dated! I don’t know how it works,” she said), she did reveal that she’s off the market once more.

RELATED: Kelsea Ballerini Details Reasons Behind Her Divorce with Heartbreaking Short Film: ‘It Wasn’t Fate’

“Am I single?” she said with a laugh in the trailer. “Am I single. God. Um… nope.”

She and Stokes, 30, were first linked in January, and Ballerini recently shared a glimpse of the two getting cozy in bed on TikTok.

The actor recently told PEOPLE that he and the country singer “have just been spending some time together.”

Morgan Evans and Kelsea Ballerini attend the 57th Academy of Country Music Awards at Allegiant Stadium on March 07, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mike Coppola/Getty Morgan Evans and Kelsea Ballerini

“Kelsea is a lovely, lovely girl. She’s great,” he said. “We’re having a good time.”

The Call Her Daddy episode comes one week after Ballerini released the searingly intimate EP Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, which chronicles the demise of her marriage alongside an accompanying short film (“Blindsided” is included on the EP).

RELATED: Chase Stokes Says He’s ‘So Excited’ for Kelsea Ballerini’s ‘SNL’ Performance: ‘She’s the Best’

“The only way I’ve been able to handle my life since I was 12 was to write about it. Ironically, I started writing music because my parents got divorced; that was my therapy,” she said in a statement.

“These are six songs I wish I had last year. It’s about the complexities of the feelings you go through during a massive shift at a young age,” she continued. “Rolling Up the Welcome Mat was how I processed everything. It’s the way I got my feelings out of my body and heart and put them to music — which is the purest way I could’ve handled it.”

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