What Happened With Tom Brady’s Relationship?

What the reasons were why Gisele left and divorced Tom Brady, ending their marriage.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer who wants to know my opinion on why Tom and Gisele divorced. I have talked about the two of them over the years on what appeared to be a great marriage, but ultimately failed due to the same 2 reasons why 99% of the guys I do phone sessions with are getting dumped in their long term relationships. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Obviously, since Tom and Gisele were in the news over the last month or two with the dissolution of their marriage and splitting up and the fact that I’ve mentioned the two of them off and on over the years, what we always saw was she was a great supportive wife, teammate, cheerleader, his biggest fan. She was always there with the kids at the Super Bowls. It looked like a very happy, perfect family. But I got an email from this guy who was like, “So, what happened?”

There was an article on Total pro Sports.com and some quotes that I’m going to go over with you from them. Because a couple of weeks ago, I talked about some things based on what I had read in the media, some direct quotes, things she had said. I think Tom talked about it on a podcast. I have not listened to that yet, but I’ve seen enough with these quotes and things that have been said, it’s the same two problems.

Guys in long term relationships that come to me to get coaching, they all have the same two issues. It’s like literally 99% of the guys that are in long term relationships and they’ve either gotten served with divorce papers, the wife wants a divorce, they’re not having sex. They broke up, they’re taking time apart, and obviously, they want to save their relationship. That’s where a lot of guys come to me. It’s like their last ditch effort. So, I’m going to read this email, and I’m going to go through some of the quotes and explain what I see and what they both said, basically.

Viewer’s Email:

Hello Coach,

You’ve made a video coaching newsletter (success story) about an email I sent a while back. Everything is still great in my relationship, and we’ve been together for over a year now. But I wanted to ask, what did Tom Brady possibly do wrong to get divorced? I remember a while back in a video you alluded to him being a role model in the sense that he is focused on his purpose, successful, has a hot wife, great family, etc.

Well, we all saw the public persona of what was going on and everything looked great. But in the last year or two, you did hear some rumblings, especially earlier this year when he retired from football and then he un-retired. And apparently, she wasn’t happy about that.

One thing I have heard you say time and time again is that a woman should never sway you off your purpose.

This is true. But, you know, looking at it from the outside in, especially a competitor playing at his level and the amount of time and effort he’s got to put into it, it’s like, you literally have to be obsessed. And that’s why he’s got all the rings he’s got. He’s got six or seven Super Bowl rings. But in the book “Why Men Love Bitches,” one of the things the book talks about, a common complaint all women have is, “why are men romantic at first, and then they change?” I think that was right out of the book. And one of the chapters in my book is “The Courtship Never Ends.” What you do to get your girl is what you do to keep her.

What happens in most long term relationships, it happens over time, it doesn’t happen overnight or in a few weeks or three months. You know, these guys were together 13, 14 years, I think it was. And what typically happens is the guy just gets lazy, he gets complacent, and he stops dating and courting his wife. And as you’ve probably heard me say many times over the years, if you don’t date and court your wife, eventually some other guy will. Whether that’s you get divorced, she leaves you and then starts dating somebody new, or if you’re with a woman that belongs to the streets and has no integrity, she’ll line up a guy behind your back. And when things look good with the new dude, she’ll blow up your relationship and then monkey branch to the next guy.

And so, that’s a big complaint that women have. Guys, just in essence, they stop dating and courting her. Women want to be in a love story. And when you stop dating and courting your wife, the love story goes away. Then, you basically become roommates, and that’s a bad way to go. And she’s always supported him, but this particular year after he retired, I don’t know the conversations or what happened, and maybe I’m wrong, but the perception is, from what I’ve read from different articles that have been published, she was not happy about him un-retiring.

But I look at that and go, he always said he wanted to play until he was 45. And so, when he retired at 44, I was like, “Well, that was weird because he said he wanted to play several more years.” It seems like he initially, maybe I’m wrong, decided to retire to please his wife, and he obviously wasn’t happy about that. He’s like, “Man, we’ve got a pretty good team. We’ve still got a good shot.” And a guy like that, I remember seeing in an interview several years ago and it was like, the only thing he loves doing in life is football. That’s just his jam. That’s the thing he loves more than anything. And so, for a guy like that to give that up when he’s still great and he just won a Super Bowl two years ago, it’s understandable why he’s not going to want to walk away.

Because his whole career he’s like, “I want to play until 45.” And he almost gets there, and he quits a year beforehand. And so, something like that, where your whole life since you were a child, you know, 44, 45 years, you’ve been a football player and that’s your number one thing, your purpose and your mission. Now, all of a sudden, that just stops. And he has a contract lined up. I think it’s CBS. You guys can fact check me in the comments about that. But he’s going to be an announcer on TV, just like Tony Romo. Which Tony Romo is great. Guys who are a quarterbacks make great commentators, because they know the game so well, both sides of the ball, because they have to. On offense, they have to be able to run the offense, but they also have to be able to read the defense.

And so, when you’re still great and playing at the highest level, why not play a year or two? And so, after he thought about it, for whatever reason, he decided to run-retire and she wasn’t happy about it. Because he probably told her that he was done, and she was happy about that. And then he changed his mind, so he went back on his word.

In the book, you referenced the boxer who fought because he had to, it was his purpose, and his wife respected him more because of it. In Brady’s situation, he continued to play football no matter what she tried to tell him, and it ended up with him getting divorced. Do you think it’s because he chose to go back to play football instead of spending more time with his family?

Well, that’s kind of part of the overall issue, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Or do you think there was other stuff behind the scenes? Rumor is that she left him because he “chose football” instead of her, but that just can’t be the case. I wanted to know your thoughts on this situation. 

Thanks for everything you do, you’ve changed my life. 

Bob

There are some quotes that were in this particular article from TotalProSports.com, “Tom Brady Made ‘Last Ditch’ Effort To Save Marriage.” And I think some of the quotes they got from People.com as well. I went and looked on People.com, and there’s a ton of articles on Tom Brady and the divorce and all that stuff, but these are the money quotes.

You know, when I do email analysis and I’m going through an email to figure out what the guy is doing right or wrong, I’m looking at what’s being said and what’s being done. Because I know how attraction works – I know what draws a woman to a man, and I know what repels her from a man. And it’s amazing, having done this for almost 20 years – and I’ve talked to guys in every kind of cultural and religious background on every continent and pretty much most countries of the world at this point – you just see same patterns over and over and over and over and over again. Women leave guys basically for the same two reasons. In long term relationships, 1) they stop dating and courting her properly, or 2) she doesn’t feel heard and understood. And as you’ve probably heard me say countless times over the years, when woman feels heard and understood, the legs open, and when she doesn’t, the legs close.

So, with that said, the important thing is, and I hear this all the time with guys that are in these situations, “I didn’t think she meant it. I didn’t think she was serious.” It’s like, a woman will say the same things over and over and over again and the guy will placate her, but then his behavior doesn’t change. And women look at a guy’s actions. The words become meaningless after a while, so this was an ongoing issue for many years.

And so, here’s the first quote: “He wasn’t hearing what she was saying.” So, she didn’t feel heard and understood. She told him what she wanted, and he may have said he was going to do certain things, but at the end of the day, football always came first. So, when she looked at his actions versus what he told her he was willing to do, they just continually did not match. And if you’re a man in a relationship with a woman, you cannot constantly tell a woman one thing and then do another. Eventually, she’s not going to trust your masculine core. She’s going to get to the point where she doesn’t believe you. She doesn’t trust that you mean what you say. After a while, it just starts to look like you’re just saying what she wants to hear.

And the two of them, 13, 14 years together, if he’s constantly promising to do things, but he allows football to get in the way because he’s so obsessed with it, if you’re going to be in a long term relationship with a woman, you have to date and court and she’s got to feel heard and understood. And if you don’t do one or the other or both, you’re going to get left. That’s inevitable. And if Tom doesn’t fix this, the next girl he ends up with is going to leave him for exactly the same reason. And so, what was happening is he was not.

And here’s another one: “He wasn’t as attentive as he should have been.” So, he wasn’t present. In other words, he might have been there physically, but mentally and emotionally, he was somewhere else. And so, it said in the article, I think the title of this particular article was “Tom Brady Made Last Ditch Effort To Save Marriage,” and basically from her end, it was “too little, too late.” In other words, women will stay with you and they will put up with a lot of stuff, but everybody’s got their breaking point.

Everybody gets to the point where, and I say this all the time, you always look at what people do, not what they say. And when somebody says they’re going to change, they’re going to do this, “I’m going to be more present, I’m going to spend more time,” and then they don’t, well, you have to assume, either they don’t want to, or they can’t, they’re incapable of it. And eventually, you have to give up. And it’s going to happen to everybody, just like guys that are setting and enforcing healthy boundaries with girls they’re dating; if they continually violate them, well, obviously there is a value conflict there. You can’t force the other person to act the way you want them to act. They either do, or they don’t. And if they don’t, and you give them many chances, then the only thing you can do is leave, if you want to get your needs met.

And so, the last one was, “She gave him a lot of opportunities to fix things, and he didn’t.” So, it was the same issue over and over. She didn’t feel heard and understood, and he didn’t date and court her properly. And when he was around, she didn’t feel like he was really there. He wasn’t present enough. He didn’t spend enough quality time with her and the kids at the level that she asked for, she expected and, based on what she said, that he promised to do. So, I mean, him getting divorced, knowing these things now, that’s predictable as the sun coming up in the East and setting in the West.

And I’ve seen this over and over and over and over in thousands of phone sessions over the years. Tens of thousands of emails, tens of thousands of phone calls. I mean, in the 20 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve done so many, and I’ve seen the same pattern over and over and over and over again. It doesn’t take me too long to figure out and diagnose what’s going on in people’s relationship. And then I give them the tools, I tell them what to do. I explain to them what the woman is saying, and what it means, and what he needs to do, and either he does and fixes it, or he doesn’t, and then it just dissolves.

Guys who listen to the things I tell them to do, they turn their relationships around. But it takes two people. It takes two people who want to fix things to make it work. And at the end, he wanted to make it work. He was willing to make it work, but she was just tapping out. She’d had enough. Just like it said, “she gave him a lot of opportunities to fix things and he didn’t.” So, I mean, the principles are the principles.

I wish they would have stayed together, because I’ve done a lot of videos over the years. I admire the hell out of Tom, because he’s just incredible. I mean, a guy like that is inspiring. He’s like the gold standard of excellence in your career and your mission and purpose that we should all strive to. And he had what appeared to be an incredible relationship and family. But to get to the level he was at, he was neglecting her, and eventually she had enough. She wasn’t getting enough from him to where she wanted to stay. It’s like, he wanted to stay with her, but she didn’t want to stay with him.

Remember, 75% of the time, women are the ones that file for divorce. And so, one of the things I always ask guys also, when I’m doing these phone sessions is, “what does she complain about?” Because I know the complaining is the same things get said over and over and over and over and over again. And so, when a guy starts, he’ll give me his rationalization or what he thinks happened. And I’m like, “Okay, well, tell me what she was complaining about all the time. What did you hear? What are the phrases that she used to say over and over and over again?” And the guy was like, boom, he knew exactly what they were. They always know what they were. They’re like, “I didn’t think she was serious” or “Oh, I didn’t think she meant that.” It is what it is.

I’m sad for them both, I’m sad for their children, but the reality is what their kids need is for both of the parents to be happy. They need examples of a great, happy, healthy relationship. That’s the best thing they can do to co-parent. I wish they would stay together. I’d still love to see him get back together. I thought they were a great team. I think most people thought they were a great team, but everybody’s got their breaking point, you know? Women want to be in a love story, and if the love story stops, if she doesn’t feel heard and understood and you’re not dating and courting her properly, and you’re not present… I mean, when you get into a relationship, you go there to give. And so he was not giving at the level consistently that he needed to.

He gave at the level that he needed to to football, but he didn’t give at the level that he needed to with his wife and his kids. And I’m sad for all of them. It sucks. You know, we were all rooting for him. Well, a lot of people were rooting for him. You know, the haters and losers, they don’t like successful people. And a lot of haters are probably glad to see him get divorced and they’re cheering that on, because then they feel better about their crappy lives. I’ve always been rooting for the two of them, and it’d be cool to see him get back together, but it looks like Elvis has left the building.

He didn’t contest the divorce, so I think it’s finalized probably. Because I got divorced in the state of Florida once. Once your separation agreement is agreed to, you set your hearing and, at least back then when I got divorced, the hearings are usually within 30 days. And the judge is like, “Is the marriage irretrievably broken?” And you’re like, “Yes.” And then the plaintiff, “Yes.” “Okay, well, you’re divorced. Good luck to you both.” I mean, it’s over. The hearing only lasts a few minutes. And it’s like a factory. There’s just tons of people going through divorces, if you’ve ever been through divorce court. It’s an interesting process in Florida. I can’t imagine what it’s like in a blue state. That’s why I caution you guys. If you live in a blue state, I just would not get married. I wouldn’t even live in a blue state. That’s why I’m really glad and grateful to live in the free state of Florida.

So, if you’re in a similar situation, your wife or your girlfriend has been complaining about the same things over and over and over again and you don’t know what to do to save it, obviously, “3% Man” is a good start. And if you’re going to book a phone session, I would highly recommend you get through this at least once before we get on the phone, because we’ll be way more efficient on a phone session if you’ve read the book at least one time, versus just watching a few videos, then calling me to book a phone session. Because there’s no getting around learning the fundamentals. Just like for Tom Brady and football, you have to learn the playbook, you’ve got to know that backwards and forwards, and you’ve got to practice it constantly. And so, you either put the attention to it or you don’t. Simple as that.

And so, if you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.