The Astroturf is always greener on the other side. From the outside looking in, the life of a celebrity athlete's wife is seen as one carefree, shopping spree and labor-free filled life of overly-pampered women. As a cynical New York native, that was my general opinion of sports wives until I became one thirteen years ago. What I quickly learned is that maintaining a healthy marriage and developing well balanced-children while under the spotlight of public scrutiny and the stresses of the automatically increased probability of infidelity is one of the hardest jobs in professional sports next to what's done on the field and court.
Welcome to the lives of celebrity sports wives.
As a full-time mom, wife, contemporary parenting writer and Vice President emeritus of Behind the Bench: the National Basketball Wives Association, I've often been approached by fellow sports wives for advice on parenting and due to my years of observing celebrity sports marriages come and go, am also approached for my take on handling infidelity. After hearing countless stories and giving countless advice, there are some key steps that never change for wives handling infidelity in the high-profile life of professional sports. The problem, however, is that most of the time many wives don't learn these steps until the issue of infidelity has presented itself.
To help the new wave of celebrity sports wives survive the terrain of bright lights and bold bimbos here is a list of the top seven things every sports wife should know about maintaining a relationship with a professional athlete and facing the issue of infidelity:
- The chance of infidelity is real. Yes, even in your relationship. The probability of infidelity triples in a celebrity sports relationship due to the countless opportunities that are offered to an athlete to cheat. Infidelity is very real and if you and your partner don't work together to protect you and yours from it, your family can become a victim of it no matter who your husband or wife is!