By Pamela D. Brown, PhD, CSP, LPC
As September nears, it’s worth trouble-shooting a concern that many NFL couples have. When and how to deal with difficult issues that come up during the playing season? Given the high stakes nature of a player’s performance and the possible negative outcomes of poor play, both players and those close to them may tend to steer away from difficult or intense conversations during the season. One problem with not discussing some issues is that we don’t deal with them when they are small. Instead we save them up, waiting for a later time. They fester and grow bigger and we begrudge them more. Another potential problem with this approach is that a lot of us are not very good at really letting go. We won’t bring something up because we know it might upset our partner or the relationship, but we resent it at the same time. And good or bad, women tend to like to discuss things and sometimes it seems like over and over again to men. Players and men in general tend to be just the opposite. They dread the hour-long conversation that re-hashes previous conversations, past history and issues that at the end of the day have no resolution (other than making them feel badly). No partner wants to hear over and over again how they are falling short, especially when they are trying to focus on their livelihood. And in the NFL, there is always someone younger and hungrier who is ready and waiting to take their place. The last thing a player wants/needs is for his relationship drama off the field to sabotage his play and his dream of an NFL career.
At least three factors figure into any professional athlete’s longevity and success: physical talent, mental toughness, and a little bit of luck. But what makes an athlete mentally tough on the playing field may not be so good for his relationship or very appreciated by his wife or partner. The strategies that an athlete uses to deal with challenging situations and disappointments on the field might actually frustrate or anger his partner, leaving her with the feeling that he is insensitive and uncaring. For most players, this probably could not be further from the truth. No player wants to disappoint his partner or to have her feel disconnected and uncared for by him. When I ask players what they want others to say about them, often at the top of the list is that they are a good partner or husband. But players and men may have different beliefs about how to communicate caring, when to discuss difficult issues, which issues need to be addressed now versus later, big deal, little deal and so forth. And speaking two different languages makes it hard to be understood, and worse yet it can leave both sides misunderstood. So, for wives and girlfriends who want their player partner to be a bunch of emotions, this may be unreasonable, especially if that is not who your partner is today.
Every player who has made it as far as the NFL has experienced some loss or disappointment related to the sport. The disappointment can include not making a team, being cut from a team or being relegated to the practice squad, not getting as much play time as a teammate, not being chosen to play a position, missing a play (catch or tackle), getting injured and being unable to play, or losing a game. When an athlete is young, way before he’s a college player or in the NFL, he’s experienced one of these frustrations. And somewhere along the way a parent or coach has told him in so many words to deal with it, suck it up, play through the pain, or put it on the back burner and not think about it. From a very young age, many players have gotten messaging implying that feelings should be set aside and that they can interfere with reaching one’s goal. This philosophy probably gets reinforced when we see athletes in the media who we believe are exceptionally talented but never win the ultimate prize of playing in a Super Bowl, US Open or whatever the ultimate competition is. They may be talented, but they choked. Individual players choke and teams choke.
For most players, being in the NFL was a dream and now that they have realized the dream, they certainly don’t want to jeopardize the life that has come with it. This strategy of setting aside emotional issues and topics has been beneficial to the player this far. Setting something aside because you have a key practice or it’s game day makes sense. What becomes difficult is the decision of when is a good time. A player may want to bask in the limelight after making a great play, winning a key game, and that may not be the time that you or he wants to discuss some heavy issue. But when you put it off again and again, a habit is built of stuffing emotions aside. It’s a habit that is cultivated for years; when you’re young and there aren’t a lot of important issues, there may not seem to be a downside to this strategy. It works. And because players are pragmatic and superstitious, if something has worked up until now, they don’t want to mess with it and risk ruining their luck. They are not apt to change, not without good reason and not if they are uncertain that the change they make in one area of their life is not going to ruin another part of their life. But when you’re in a relationship with someone, you don’t want your relationship on the back burner. And although there are probably many issues that can be dealt with like that, feelings in close relationships don’t really work that way. Recently, Charles Barkley was quoted talking about Tiger Woods and their friendship or rather the extent of it. “I think that when you’re as great as he has been, and this probably is a negative at some point, like he was so consumed with being the greatest golfer ever, he wasn’t a very sociable guy. Even when Tiger was a friend of mine, he wasn’t a very sociable guy. He just had a one-track mind. He just wanted to break Jack Nicklaus’ record.” Basically, Barkley seemed to be saying that Tiger put sports and achieving in his sport ahead of relationships. This is probably not an uncommon but possibly unconscious attitude for many elite athletes. Although there are not a lot of Tiger Woods out there with his level of drive and focus, many athletes may think similarly. And we can guess that Tiger’s father, who from all accounts was so instrumental in nurturing his son’s talents, was not telling him consider others’ emotions, or his own. He was probably telling him to focus, and focus on the goal of the next shot or winning a game.
So, where does this leave the girlfriends or wives?
The first step towards a solution is just to understand this perspective on life and dealing with stuff and where it comes from. Realize that such long-standing habits and patterns might not be easy to change. Even when we become self-aware and decide that we want to change some aspect of ourselves, it is not easy. How many of us have made New Year’s resolutions and not kept them? How many times have we said we will spend less money, go to the gym regularly, or change our diets? The second step is to be understood by your partner, but always in the back of your mind, understanding their framework. Why do they have this habit? Why was it beneficial? What might they risk by changing how they deal with things? You cannot pull the rug out from under someone. In other words, you cannot take away the only strategy someone has known without replacing it with something else. You have to realize that at first doing something in a drastically different way is probably going to feel risky. But given that putting everything on the back burner might not be the best for a player or his relationship in the long-term, here are some thoughts and compromises that will hopefully make things a little better in the short and long-term.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Here are some suggestions of what you and your partner can do before the regular season begins.
1. Think now about the best times to talk about issues. Ideally you should have a time each week when you can talk.
2. The smaller, the easier. Don’t wait until issues are really big before you discuss them. When the issue is smaller, it’s easier for both partners to discuss; there’s just not as much riding on the outcome. When the issue is small, no one partner is feeling hurt or thinking they are being taken for granted. And, the other partner is not feeling as if he has really screwed up or hurt the other partner.
3. Figure out what’s urgent but not important and what’s urgent and important. Some issues can wait and knowing that they are only time-sensitive but not important makes it easier to put off a particular issue or conversation.
- Many years ago when Steven Covey first published his book, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” he suggested a model for prioritizing and focusing our efforts in life. In life, we spend our times responding to urgent and non-urgent issues as well as important and unimportant ones. This model might be a useful way for you to decide as a couple whether an issue is one that needs to be dealt with more immediately or one that can wait till a by-week, day off or even the off-season. To do so, start with your big picture goals and then think about what you would need to do to get there. These are important issues. Is the issue you want to discuss critical to the big picture? Will there be any impact if you wait on it? A lot of what we do is address time-sensitive issues that are unimportant such as attending meetings or answering certain phone calls or texts and forget about important issues that are not or do not seem to be time sensitive. An example of something that is important but not urgent might be planning for life after football, eating healthy or exercising. It’s important in terms of your long-term goals of career or good health but not something that needs to be addressed immediately.
4. If your partner wants to discuss it later, choose a day and time that you both believe will be good for you as a couple. Knowing that there is a time in the future when you will deal with the issue will probably make the partner who has been put on hold not feel dismissed.
5. Don’t think you need to resolve the issue with one conversation, it may take more than one and it may not be resolvable. Many issues that couples have don’t get resolved, and oftentimes what’s most important is that both partners feel that they are being heard and that their perspectives are being validated.
6. Sometimes a partner brings issues up in a way that leads the other partner to shut down and tune out the message. In a relationship you need to able to discuss issues. If your delivery is alienating your partner, find out a better way of delivering your message. And if you can’t figure out how to deliver your message on your own, ask! And then listen. And then do it…differently. Your goal should be to be heard and understood, not necessarily to do it your way.
7. Be patient. Remember that change is a difficult process that can take a long time, even when we are invested in it. Old habits die hard. Think baby steps.
8. If you are having difficulty putting these steps into practice or there are issues that you have let brew for too long, seek help. The help may be in the form of figuring out a better way of delivering the message or having more reasonable expectations once you have delivered the message. In any case and like in any other situations where you are not expert—or your expertise is insufficient to meet the challenge and bring about the outcome you want—get help.