Wives of Professional Athletes: Is Being “Too Tired” a Cop Out?

Before I continue on in the article, I have been thinking about a comment that my fellows basket wife, Maria, made about part three.  She offered a lot of alternative insights and thoughts to some of mine.  I always appreciate the way her comments stimulate my thinking more.  In regards to our husbands being too tired, she concluded with:

I am not saying that this issues are impossible to overcome, but to say that our husbands are too tired, at least in my family, is a cop out– especially when kids are involved.

As Maria said, this is for her family.  But it got me thinking more about how we deal with the physical tiredness of Joe in our home.  This is an area that I have struggled and thought through over the past 7 seasons and one that I have heard other basket wives speak of often.  It is difficult to address because not only is it an issue that each family must figure out for themselves, but there are a lot of factors that come into play.

Here are some factors we consider for our family (I am only speaking of how we think about this issue, not how everyone must) and to take into account when we look at dividing up the family and household responsibilities:

1. We consider how my role in our home is defined.  We definite my role largely by Titus 2:3-5, which says:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

I know some people may not like this and I am in no way stating it as a rule, but for our family, we see my main role as being the worker at home.  This isn’t to say that I would never work outside of the home, but my first priority is in our home, caring for Joe, the kids and our house.  Obviously, our circumstances could change some day.  If Joe were to get hurt or one of our kids had some medical issues where I would have to work, we would have to re-evaluate.  But at this point, we are wiling to do whatever we can to have me at home as worker primarily.  Because of that conviction, I see caring for the kids and work around the house as my job.  This in no way means Joe doesn’t help out with the kids or around the house.  Joe does plenty with the kids and in helping me.  I have to guard against expecting him to do things, like chores around the house, instead of seeing them as a way he is serving and loving me.    Again, this is not law, but just our conviction.  Your overall conviction in this area will make a difference in how much you may expect your husband to do.

2. We consider the role Joe plays on a team.  Right now he is usually playing somewhere between 33-40 minutes a game.  Not only that but he is typically the focus of the other team’s defense with other players actually telling him that they are sent in simply to hack him and tire him out.  He is going to be a whole lot more tired that the guys who are sitting the bench and only playing 5 minutes a game.  Plus at practice he has to play against the guys who barely play and are bringing their full energy at him.

3. We consider what part of the season Joe is in.  There are certain times are are much more tiring than others.  I shudder to remember what preseason felt like, so I know that is a tough time for him.  And at this point in the year, he has been playing now for 8 months, with the longest break being 4 days.

4. We consider what his training schedule entails.  There is a lot of overtaining that goes on in Europe.  This really wears on professional athletes when a job that is already physically tiring is made even harder because they simply practice too much, too long or too hard.  There are a lot of symptoms of overtraining, but one that Joe really experiences is insomnia.  So not only is he tired from all the work, but when you find it hard to sleep at night, it is tougher to feel refreshed and recovered.

5. We consider the overall attitude we want to bring to one another in our marriage.  We are both aiming to serve and love one another, as well as be truthful and trusting.  If my overall attitude towards Joe is that he is lazy and inconsiderate, I may see his “tiredness” in a different lens than I do if I view him as a loving husband who works hard to provide for his family and to love me as Christ loves the church.  My aim is to trust Joe and believe the best (1 Corinthians 13:7).  He is a great help in countless ways and a leader in many non-physical ways, so that I trust that if I am asking him to do something extra and he really is not up to it, he means it.

Those are things I try to keep in mind when Joe and I communicate on how much he is doing around the house.

In general, I don’t feel that most wives have an appreciation for the amount of physical work that goes into our husband’s job.  I am thankful that I played soccer at a high caliber division 1 level, just so I have some point of reference to understand the physical stress on the body of a professional athlete.  For Joe just to take a jump shot, when he lands he is putting 4x his body weight on his joints.  The pounding of the body they go through every day just with the regular demands of the sport, plus the physical aspect of a contact sport (which intensifies things in certain sports) is more than our body was created to endure.

Do I think that there are times when the “I am tired” is an excuse, yes I do.  But I know there are times I ask him to do something because I am being lazy myself.  I am not always gracious when he tells me he is “too tired” to do something.  Being a work in progress and still having sin reside in me, it is often a battle in my heart, but in the end I want to err towards the side of serving my husband and believing the best.