Wives of Professional Athletes, Part Two

If you haven’t read part one, it is found here.  Continuing on in the article with the next two sections:

Control management in the sport marriage

As a career-dominated marriage, the sport marriage provides an excellent model with which to conceptualize marital control, to gain insight into the nature of women’s power in the family as they manage the impact of men’s work on the family, and to explore how women cope with the stressful occupational events induced by men’s work. But what do we actually know about the men and women involved, and about the stress, strain, and conflicts in their marriages? Clearly, we know a great deal more about the high-profile husbands. In contrast, we know very little about the almost invisible wives. In fact, we know very little about how these women experience and cope with the stressful occupational events that may benefit their husbands’ careers, benefit their husbands or their marriages financially, or in some way translate into career milestones for their husbands. Indeed, we know very little about the price these women pay for male career success.

So how do I cope with the stressful events in our marriage due to Joe’s job?  Well, for sure I couldn’t survive this life if I did not feel a calling from God to be Joe’s wife.  Knowing that God will never put me in a situation He does not also grant me the grace to handle is key.  At times it is hard to believe that though.  And that is when the support of others is a big help.  Connecting with other basket wives has been huge in knowing not only that I am not the only one out there, but being able to take my eyes off of myself and encourage others.  Having an outlet to support others in the same lifestyle encourages me at the same time.  I will have more on friendships with basketball wives tomorrow.

As important as other basket wives are to me, I can’t have all of my friendships there.  To have people who are outside of my circle brings perspective to my life.  It is refreshing to have people outside of the basketball world to give you insight from an outsider’s perspective.  And to again bear their burdens and remember that there are other stressful jobs out there.

Dependency in the sport marriage

Early in her marriage a wife of a professional athlete finds she can have a great deal of control in her marriage. Because her husband is generally self-absorbed, because he is fully consumed by his career, and because he leaves family management to her, usually he will not threaten her need to be in control. Because of his dependence on her in this area and her early socialization experiences, a wife becomes the “organizer” or “planner” in the family. Such roles reflect taking the role of controller.

This is another area of struggle for me as Christian living in this world of athletics.  Because Joe is often gone and as mentioned above, a lot of the family management falls on me, it can be very easy to want to seize control of things.  When Joe is gone for long periods of time (more than 3-4 days), the adjustment is always tough for me when he gets home.  In that short amount of time, I get into my own rhythm of running the house.  But as a Christian, we want our home to bed led by him.  This takes a good deal of communication on our part.  For example, when I have been setting a standard for one of the kids for a few days and he comes home and wants to do something different, it can send mix messages to the kids.  Who is in charge anyway?  Overall though, the biggest issue is to keep an attitude of submission in my heart.  Kids can tell the spirit in which things are done.  A constant area of prayer for me is to be a wife who respects her husband in my words, tone of voice and actions.

A wife’s need to please others is frequently included in her social construction of high dependency and this is often inherent in her control work. Thus, she does control work to get love, and doing control work becomes doing love.

In a highly dependent relationship such as this, a wife’s sense of self is validated by her marital labor or her husband’s career success, and self is legitimized as a worthy wife and/or mother….Through this form of denial there may be little or no self-acceptance of her accomplishments because she is constantly thinking, “If I can do better, if I behave, or if I succeed, then everything will be fine. I will be needed. I will be loved.”

Being a wife whose husband depends on me a lot, it is easy to equate what I do with the reason for why Joe loves me.  This can then lead to feeling downcast when he mentions something that I may not have done as he would have done it.  It is a battle to remember that he does not love me for what I do.  He sees all my failures and sins, but loves me in spite of them.  The marriage is a place where we can see the love of God demonstrated very clearly.  When our spouses love us despite of our sin because they view us in light of the cross, we can more fully understand how God can love us even though he sees us for who we really are.  The more we grow by God’s grace, the more we appreciate all that is done for one another, but our love does not waver in relation to what is done.

This life does make us very dependent on one another though.  We really do enjoy all the extra time we get with one another while we are overseas.  It is actually one of our favorite things and often by the end of the summer, we are ready to travel again.  Evenings are much more relaxed and time together as a family is much easier.

There is a danger to all this time though.  Because of the isolation we experience as a couple, I have seen how easy it is for sport marriages to make their spouse their god.  But this often leads to stunted growth in their marriage and loneliness in the long run.  We can only grow as people as we pour our love out in different outlets.  Although we may think it is best to have all the love to ourselves, that rarely holds true.  The best husband/wife is the one who is being a great father/mother, son/daughter, brother/sister, and friend.  And most of all, the one who loves all others less than Jesus is able to love others more fully.

Part three coming tomorrow…