NEW YORK — Denise Jackson knew that her marriage to Alan Jackson wasn't perfect. She was too needy and insecure in the relationship, and he was on the road a lot, becoming one of country's biggest superstars.

Still, she wasn't prepared for the shock she got in 1998, shortly after the birth of their third child, when Jackson — her sweetheart since their teen years — told her that he didn't want to be in the marriage anymore. Hurt and disillusioned, she tried everything to get him back and turned to prayer.

A revelation came one day when a friend told her she wouldn't pray for Alan Jackson to come back, but instead, would pray for Denise Jackson to become the woman that God intended her to be. From that day on, Denise Jackson began to reassess the role God played in her life — and, instead of focusing on how to repair her relationship with her husband, put her efforts into rebuilding her relationship with God. In the end, she says, becoming closer to God helped her become closer to her husband — and save her marriage.

Jackson writes about her journey in the new book "It's All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life." And while her husband is on the cover of the book and included a CD of two songs, after the first few chapters, it becomes clear that the country singer is not the ultimate focus of her book.

Associated Press: What made you want to write this book?

Jackson: Honestly, I've had this desire in my heart for nine years, soon after we separated. I really started thinking about how my story is a story of hope, and I really wanted to share with people how nothing is impossible with him and how he can tackle relationships and restore them, and really just so people can be drawn to him. One of the points I make in the book is that I have everything in the world ... and yet at one point, I was insecure, and my marriage was not right, and how none of that stuff really brings lasting joy and contentment, but the thing that does is available to everybody, and that's a relationship with God.

AP: What kind of pressure did you feel to have this perfect relationship with your husband?

Jackson: I put so much pressure on myself. Everyone, I felt, was looking at us under a magnifying glass, and I had to be the perfect wife, who was the perfect size, who wore the perfect gown, who had the perfect jewels, and it was so stressful to live like that and to base your self-worth on what you thought other people felt about you. So that's why it was so freeing to really come to the place in my life where I realized that I shouldn't base my self-worth on any of that, that my self-worth really comes from being a child of God.