They enjoyed 15 years of happy marriage, then their lives came crashing down after a catastrophic car accident. Now, Amanda Robinson has found love again
A woman has hit back at trolls who insist she’s ‘breaking her wedding vows’ as she painfully admits “I don’t have a marriage anymore”.
Amanda Robinson, 39, enjoyed 15 years of blissful marriage with her husband Matt, 42. They were childhood sweethearts, meeting in high school in 2003 and becoming newlyweds just two years later. The couple went on to have two sons together.
But their lives came crashing down in February 2021 when a devastating accident left Matt with life-changing injuries. Amanda’s husband’s truck was hit by another vehicle and his head was ‘crushed,’ resulting in a catastrophic brain injury that affects his vision, personality, memory and behaviour.
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A nurse by trade, Amanda is well experienced in witnessing traumatic injuries, but watching the husband she knew and loved slip away was a different kind of heartbreak. She spent four years caring for Matt – feeding, cleaning and dressing him every day. Then, Amanda made the impossible decision to admit him to a care home nearby. She still adored her husband, but she needed to regain some normality in her life after years of being his sole carer.
Consumed by heartbreak, Amanda, from Prescott, Arizona, never imagined she’d find love again. But then she met Josh, a 38-year-old country singer who entered her life when she least expected it.
She caught his attention during his performance at her local bar. After swapping phone numbers, Amanda returned for a second gig a few weeks later. It was then that she informed Josh of Matt’s condition.
The mum explained: “I don’t think he fully understood what I meant, but then I saw him again a few weeks later, and he said he’d looked at my Facebook page, which I used to update friends and family about Matt’s condition, and he said ‘Matt sounded like a great guy'”.
The pair grew closer, but Josh made it clear that Matt was also going to be an important part of his life. It was a few months after they became a couple when Amanda took her new boyfriend to see Matt on one of her regular visits. Then, the pair quickly fell into a routine of Josh helping Amanda to support Matt – as he formed his own bond with her husband.
“I did this all by myself for years, and now I have somebody else right there with me and I’m not doing it all alone,” Amanda said.
“I hadn’t let myself connect with anybody before, because in my mind, I was married and I was dedicated to being a caregiver, and I had just accepted that’s the life I was going to have. I know that if Matt was aware of what was going on, he wouldn’t want me to be his caregiver forever, he’d want me to be happy.”
Matt’s accident came out of nowhere, and no-one could have predicted the reality that the couple faced. His injuries were so severe that the family were told by doctors to say their goodbyes. But thankfully, he survived and spent the next 10 months in hospital recovering.
Amanda explained: “When I went to the hospital to see him, I was just in shock. I couldn’t believe it was him, his eyes were black, he had blood coming out of his ears, eyes and nose, his head was all wrapped and bloody. There was literally no sign of life in him.”
When Matt finally came home in December 2021, he was able to talk, walk and eat. Physically, he looked fine. But things started to quickly deteriorate from there. The brain injury started to hinder Matt’s ability to retain information, and his memory was slipping away. To add to the distress, Matt also lost his vision.
“Instead of seeing black, he hallucinates that he’s in a places that he’s not, it can get so confusing for him,” Amanda admitted. “In his mind, he’s still living life before the accident. Sometimes he tells me he’s off to work, other times he thinks he still goes to school. His memory is all over the place. The hardest part is having to explain to him where he is and what’s going on.”
Reflecting on Matt’s condition, the mum-of-two said: “I used to feel so sad that he lost his career, he lost knowing his kids, he lost friends, he lost everything. He’s just kind of physically here. But then I realised that up until that moment, we had a great life and I don’t think he would regret anything.”
After years of carrying everything alone, Amanda is proud of her unconventional family dynamic and wants to raise awareness. She just wants to be happy while still supporting her husband, who she is still legally married to.
But online trolls have made things difficult. “People online say I’m breaking my marriage vows, but I don’t have a marriage anymore,” she explains. The mum knows deep down that she’s not doing anything wrong – and says she deserves to be loved and cared for again.
“I lost all the same things he did. I lost my career, I lost a lot of time with my kids, I couldn’t do things with friends anymore. I realised that me and my sons needed to be happy too.”
It took some time for Amanda and Matt’s sons to come around to the idea of Josh being part of their lives. But the mum reveals that they have now warmed to him, and she believes it was helped by Josh making it clear he is not trying to replace Matt.
The country singer shared: “After hearing about who Matt was prior to his accident, I had nothing but utmost respect for the man he still would be today if he could be.
“I told Amanda that I wish he could miraculously recover so she can have her family back together and that [if] ever that was the case, I would step aside and be so happy for her and her kids.
“Amanda is a wonderful woman and I am sharing my life with her, Matt and their two kids, I wouldn’t want any of it to change.”
