Former NFL Quarterback Is An Autism Dad

Rodney Peete’s story can help your marriage

Chances are, if you’re a dad who watches football, you know Rodney Peete, and if you’re a woman, you probably know with his wife, actress Holly Robinson, who has been in several TV shows for the past two decades.

Peete played for six teams during his 16-year NFL career, earning a trip to the Super Bowl as a quarterback for the Carolina Panthers in 2003.

But there is another part of the former quarterback’s life you might not know about: The father of four is the dad of a son on the autism spectrum, and he has great advice on marriage that can help save your relationship.

I’ve noticed my wife loves when I share tidbits of information while we’re watching a football game like “Matthew Stafford, the Rams quarterback, has four young girls … I wonder if he throws passes to his girls in the front yard.”

Guys, his story can be the way you spice up watching the Super Bowl with your wife or partner … by tossing in what you read from this story about how a former Super Bowl quarterback saved his marriage with a couple changes.

Processing emotions differently

I read his 2010 book Not My Boy! soon after my son was diagnosed with autism at three. His book describes how he and his wife processed their emotions to their son’s diagnosis separately rather than together.

While his wife researched to find the right therapies for their son, Peete resisted accepting the diagnosis for his son, R.J., who is now 24, because it reminded him of his life of fighting labels to become a black NFL quarterback.

If you’ve heard how women average 2,000 words per day and men about 200, you can imagine how the Peete’s probably responded to the son’s diagnosis. But the main thing is — and this is common in all marriages — they responded separately to a key event in their lives rather than talking about it together.

Their different attitudes to their son’s diagnosis (and not talking about it together and working through it a couple) caused a major crack in the foundation of their marriage, and it nearly led to the end of their marriage.

A marriage in crisis

Peete and his wife fell into two archetypes for parents of a child on the spectrum: The Mom on Overdrive to find right therapies to help support their child, and the Dad in Denial struggling to be on the same page with his wife.

They lived together in the same house (when Peete wasn’t playing football during the fall), but Peete and his wife were far apart in how they dealt with their son’s diagnosis, and this fractured the foundation of their marriage.

They faced a whirlwind of issues: finding therapies and the best school environment, understanding autism, and dealing with their emotions of the diagnosis and how it altered some of their expectations for their son.

“We had years to dream the dreams that all parents have for their children, and then that child was snatched away. R.J. was still R.J., but he could no longer reciprocate our love or respond to our voices.” -Rodney Peete

Peete says in his book they were both in denial, but their denial took different forms. He was defensive, refusing to accept what was right in front of his eyes, and his wife hid her grief going into full-on crisis management attack mode.

Their relationship reached a point that is common for many couples with a child on the spectrum: autism became the only subject they talked about. There was new jargon to learn and parenting techniques to have to master.

“But after a while, it all started to sound like gibberish. Okay, fine, whatever. I didn’t believe the diagnosis anyway.” — Rodney Peete

A Portrait of Denial

While his wife found therapies for their son, R.J., after he was diagnosed with autism at three, Peete liked to visit a lounge in Beverly Hills called the Grand Havana Room during the summer in the twilight of his football career.

He called his cigars and scotch Daddy Time.

He felt the burn of a Macallan malt scotch on his lips, and as it entered into his bloodstream, he would begin to forget his marital problems.

“I hadn’t been a hard liquor drinker before my son was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. But that summer after the diagnosis, I began to understand that there’s nothing hard about a good scotch.” — Rodney Peete

Drinking was his escape, and how he coped with the stress related to his son’s diagnosis. The staff in the lounge knew him by name and exactly what he liked to drink, a Montecristo #2 with a Macallan, and the cigars he smoked.

He’d stretch out in a soft leather club chair, looking out the tall second-story windows in the club with a sweeping view of the Hollywood Hills, and it felt like no troubles could touch him as he took in the smell of cedar and tobacco.

When I read about Peete’s summer of cigars and scotch, I recognized I was in denial not so much over my son’s diagnosis, but the rift in my marriage, and I had developed a similar pattern to Peete’s to escape the stresses of marriage.

“I wanted to be there for my family, but I spent my precious evenings in my chair at the Grand Havana instead of with them.” — Rodney Peete

Peete usually went to the club alone. When he would invite friends, he didn’t talk about his son’s struggling to talk and to make eye contact.

“Maybe this was because I wanted to escape the feelings that were killing me inside. Maybe, I believed my friends couldn’t relate; maybe I didn’t know how to talk about it. Mostly, I was just scared.”

Okay, this part you might not want to talk about during the Super Bowl, but the next part is how the Peete’s were over to triumph over their challenges.

Reconnecting as a couple

The most important thing the Peete’s learned in hard times is what my wife and I have learned: When you hyper-focus on your child’s needs for years, you will neglect to spend time with each other to nurture your relationship.

First, things had to get a lot worse before they got better. My wife and I reached this same tipping point as the Peetes did in their marriage: We began to associate spending time with each other more as pain instead of pleasure.

It was hard for Peete and his wife to reconnect in their relationship because like many parents of an autistic child they lived in a crisis mode for years.

“The more we held our opposing positions, the wider the gap grew between us. I was shut down withdrawn, frozen. Holly was just putting one foot in front of the other.” — Rodney Peete

The rift in their marriage mended only when they began to refocus on their own relationship which helped them to get on the same page as parents, but it took some harsh but honest words from Peete’s wife:

“Listen, it’s not about you. It’s about him. I can’t do it without you, but I can’t do with you like this. You’re going to have to deal with this at some point and if you don’t you have to go.”

My parallel story

Peete’s story helped me to see the problems in my marriage more clearly. The biggest problem was my wife and I had contrasting parenting styles, and this caused us to not be on the same page and be in sync in co-parenting our son.

A therapist assessed our problem in 30 minutes.

I was The Fun Dad who needed to “step up” my parenting, and my wife was The Commander-in-Chief who needed to give fewer demands and spend more time connecting with our son.

Like Peete and his wife, we were overly focused on supporting our son more than caring about our relationship, and we stopped enjoying spending time together with each other and negative interactions outweighed positive ones.

However, we soon got smart by taking advantage of Parents Night Out at our church, and over time, we adapted our parenting styles to be in sync and began to reconnect in our relationship.

Another thing that helped reduce the stress in our relationship was I learned a more healthy way to handle conflicts within our marriage by attending a twelve-step recovery program.

One of the ways I learned to deal with conflicts was to feel the sting of a hurt and to express it to God, to myself, or a friend, and to practice forgiveness by not allowing a relationship hurt to fester and grow and turn into resentment.

Another step that improved our relationship is I made amends by apologizing to my wife for how my addiction had hurt her, and while she didn’t forgive me right away, it was a step in my recovery and, later, she eventually forgave me.

Final thought

So, if you’re watching the Super Bowl with your spouse today, snuggle up next to them on the living room sofa. Focus on enjoying spending time with each other while sipping on your favorite drink and eating chips and salsa.

Keep a semi-close eye on your children if you’re parents and don’t forget the lesson from a former Super Bowl quarterback that can save your marriage: Spend time nurturing and strengthening your relationship with your spouse.

After all, you got married to be close to one another and not to drift apart.

Try this tip I learned from a therapist too: Look into your spouse’s eyes for five minutes without saying anything and it will melt or break walls between you.

Trust me, try it out during the game or the next day during Valentine’s Day.

I’m tagging you to provide a different view of the Super Bowl tomorrow as a pregame story:

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Thanks for reading my story.

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