Since moving to Los Angeles from Detroit ahead of the 2021 NFL season, life has been moving full-steam ahead for Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford and his wife Kelly. But as the mother of four revealed Tuesday on her podcast, “The Morning After,” the couple recently needed something of a reset.
In the opening minutes of Tuesday’s episode, Kelly — who has been married to the 33-year-old quarterback since 2015 — explained that she and Stafford like to have at least one game a year reserved for themselves and family, as opposed to hosting visitors. Amid a challenging week, in which Kelly was also feeling under the weather, she suffered her first panic attack after a culmination of different stressors.
“I was going through all of these things, I’m stressed out about people being there, but not with me. I’m stressed about the holidays, I’m stressed that I have four kids … and to top it off, I had the stomach bug,” Kelly said. “I’m laying in bed on Wednesday night … and I’m just trying to go the f—k to sleep. I feel awful, I’m stressed out, there’s so many things happening that I can’t control, and then I lose control, and I have my first panic attack.”
Stafford came to Kelly’s aid, with the attack itself lasting about 10 minutes. The following day, the pair “hashed out” much of the stressors that had been taking over, with the Rams quarterback offering a candid omission to his wife.
“To be totally honest, I didn’t know this until Saturday hit, but Matthew had been feeling like, I just, I don’t know, didn’t like him for the last month,” Kelly said. “When he told me on Sunday morning before the game, he said, ‘I just feel like I’m the last person on your list,’ and he was. And I feel like as significant others, as husbands and wives, as boyfriends and girlfriends, you tend to put the person that means the most to you at the bottom of the list … we’re not doing it to hurt each other, but in the end, it hurts.
“When I’m trying to take care of everybody else and my four kids, I forget about my husband, and that boiled over, and that was really hard to see because, when he was describing it to me, he was completely right.”
Although Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans did not swing in the Rams’ favor — Stafford threw for 294 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions in the 28-16 loss — Kelly noted Monday that her recent experience served as something of a wake-up call.
“Family, my family, should always come first. I realized after trying to take care of everything for everyone else … the people closest to me, that mean the most to me, were suffering,” she wrote in an Instagram Story. “My girls, my husband.. people that I never want that to happen to. This is my fresh start to make sure I care for them first and then, if I have time and energy .. I’ll try for everyone else too.”