Brett Favre – end of a career, end of a marriage?

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he following is a transcript of Russ Morley, host of 850 WFTL radio interviewing Celebrity Life Coach and Human Behavior Expert, Patrick Wanis Ph.D. for insights and analysis about the Brett Favre scandal. The Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre allegedly left voicemails for Jenn Sterger and sent her naked pictures of himself in 2008 when Favre was playing for the Jets and Jenn Sterger was working for the team. Brett Favre has been reported as admitting to leaving voice mails for Jenn Sterger but has denied he sent the photos. it’s now expected that Sterger is prepared to contradict Favre’s denial that he sent inappropriate pictures to her.

Russ Morley: Joining us this morning is Dr. Patrick Wanis – Celebrity Life Coach and Human Behavior Expert.  Dr. Wanis good morning. How are you?

Patrick Wanis PhD: Good morning, Russ.

Russ Morley: Good to have you on. I haven’t talked to you in a while.

Patrick Wanis PhD: Thank you. Well, I’ve been doing a lot of traveling.

Russ Morley: Where have you been?

Patrick Wanis PhD: I was in LA, Melbourne, Sydney, New York, LA.

[Laughter]

Russ Morley: Building up those frequent flyer miles, huh?

Patrick Wanis PhD: Yes. I’m going to make sure I use them.

Russ Morley: Alright. Let’s talk about Brett’s addiction or do you see this as an addiction. We know Tiger Woods had a sex addiction. Do you see this with Brett or just maybe a slip, a poor – a poor taste experience?

Patrick Wanis PhD: Well, let’s begin with the first question, sex addiction and I think because you and I have spoken many times before about this, you know very clearly that I don’t believe or subscribe to this sex addiction diagnosis for many reasons.

First, there’s no real neurological way to prove that someone has an addiction. Second, how many times a day, do you need to have sex to equal an addiction? Number three, Tiger Woods is able to play golf quite easily. He didn’t go hiding behind the bushes or go running behind the bushes for a quickie. Number four, most rock stars and athletes would fall into the category of sex addiction if there was one.

Meaning, that they love to have lots of sex with lots of different women but we might say that someone has destroyed their life because of the fact that they chose or are not able to control their behavior but that can apply to anything. It can be work, it can be drinking, it can be gambling. Not everything is always an addiction.

And I think that a lot of people use that excuse, and notice I use the word excuse, as a way to either, you know, hold on to endorsements or to make more money. It always comes down to the bottom line, Russ. You know, managers, the entourage, agents, publicists, assistants all work together to find a way out to protect someone, to protect their image, and protect their endorsements. Basically, they protect their celebrities so that they can keep making money.

Russ Morley: You know what? I listened to the phone calls that – do we have any of the phone calls here, Rick? Can you play one of those Brett Favre phone calls? You don’t really hear the kind of the behavior that we got from Tiger Woods. I mean it sounds almost benign. Play a little bit of that phone call that ones that Brett left for the young lady, Jenn Sterger.

Brett Favre: Jen, it’s about 7 here. Just done with practice. Got meetings here and I left for about a couple more hours. I’m going back to the hotel and just chill. So, [Indiscernible] [0:02:28] because I’ll be in the [Indiscernible] for a couple of hours. You want to maybe come over tonight. ..I’d love to see you tonight.

Russ Morley: Yes, maybe they were just going to meet to have a nice tea and go over the playbook.

Patrick Wanis PhD: Look at it for what it really is. This is – and again, we’re assuming that this is real because it hasn’t been confirmed by Favre’s camp. It’s only that a Fox reporter is saying, “Look, the NFL told me that Brett admitted that they were his phone calls but he’s denying the photos.”

Russ Morley: Right.

Patrick Wanis PhD: But look at it as it is. Here is a guy that is an icon in Football. He has a lot of power. I’m sure that most women will be throwing themselves at him. Now, he encounters a woman who probably isn’t that interested for whatever her reasons are and that’s her choice. If you listen to the tonality of what you just played, the guy is like a very cool guy. “Hey, I just finished – you know, I just got done with practice. Why don’t you come over? Let’s get together. Come to my hotel.” It’s very – it’s very calm. There’s no desperation and it’s more like he’s just throwing the card out there and hoping that she’s going to take the card and say, “Yes, let’s play.”

Russ Morley: Alright. I’m going to take a break here, Patrick. And when we come back, I want to talk to you about this. The collateral damage of Brett’s actions and we’re not talking about him losing endorsement dollars but the impact on his wife, Deanna. Should she leave him? Is the marriage heading in the same direction as Tiger Woods? Can he recover from something like this?

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Well, I shouldn’t go right and say too much about it. Dr. Patrick Wanis PhD, your human behavior expert, celebrity life coach joining us this morning.

She didn’t address it at all, did she Patrick when she was talking about this? Is that just in denial or she’s just keeping the card close to her chest.

Patrick Wanis PhD: Oh, I think she gave you a very clear answer when she said, “Look, the way that I’m handling this is that I’m turning to God because that’s the only way I can get through this.” Because what she’s saying is there’s something more than just allegations. That’s what I get from what she said. Remember, Tiger Woods didn’t screw up his life because he slept around with a lot of women. He screwed up his life because he was married and slept around with a lot of women.

The advantage here that Brett has, if he has an advantage, is that he actually he didn’t sleep with Jenn Sterger. He allegedly sent it via this voicemail or sent to this voicemail message and tried to get together with her. But he didn’t succeed, which is actually better for Deanna than if he had actually gone ahead and had some affair with Jenn Sterger.

So, that is a big advantage for her. I think that Deanna is telling you that there is something there, maybe something more than what we know to be. And obviously, when there’s allegations like that, yes, she’s going to be hurt, she’s going to be not devastated but really affected by the allegations. However, she had a private conversation with her husband and her husband is going to have told her the truth. If the truth is that he did more than just send her those voicemail messages, if the truth is he did also send photos then yes, she’s really going to be turning to her faith for help and support.

Russ Morley: Dr. Wanis PhD, if you had Deanna and Brett Favre on your couch in your office, what would you be telling them?

Patrick Wanis PhD: I always talk first with them individually. So, I would be speaking with Brett to say to him, “Okay. Can you be honest with yourself about why you did this and what was your motivation?” And most likely, it comes down to ego. It comes down to lack of self-discipline. It comes down to opportunity, temptation. Then you turn around to Deanna and say to her, “Are you willing to forgive him based on whether Brett is actually truly repentant if he says, “Look, I’m sorry. I was wrong. I won’t do this again. And I will make it up to you. And I do love you and you are the most important person in my life.”

If he really says that and believes that from his heart, then she has the opportunity to say, “I will forgive you. I’ll give you another chance but you need to regain my trust.”

Russ Morley: Generally speaking, when relationships go through something like this even if it was a simple flirtation or an attempt that maybe having a little something on the side, would the relationships recover or they start a slow downhill slide?

Patrick Wanis PhD: Well, there’s a difference between whether there’s been an affair or whether there’s been an attempt to have an affair. An attempt to have an affair is much easier to heal than a real affair is because a lot more damage has been done. The problem is that it erodes one of the most important things in relationship, that’s trust.

The second message it sends to the other partner is you’re not number one anymore. And the third message it sends is you’re not that important to me. So yes, it can be healed and resolved but once there’s been cheating, betrayal, and lies most of the relationships begin to erode unless both partners, both are willing to really work at it and say, “I will do it differently. I will behave differently. I will make it up to you, the person that I betrayed, and I will work at regaining your trust.” And usually what happens is sometimes one or both partners say, “No, I’m not willing to do it.”

Russ Morley: What about texting? Have you found this to be in your experience since this has become quite popular, a very – a bad thing, I mean it really leads to a lot of flirtatious activity.

Patrick Wanis PhD: Texting isn’t bad. It’s like saying, well, when we had the phone, the phone is bad. It’s like fire. You can use fire to heat up and create food and create good things or you can use fire to burn and destroy. So, you could use the text with your wife. Brett could be sending text messages to his wife telling her how much he loves her and how much he misses her and how significant she is. And he could be flirting with her or he could be using the same phone to send text messages and photos to someone else.

So, the problem isn’t texting. It’s how we choose to use it. So, if you’re in a relationship, if you’re married, use the text messaging to strengthen your relationship, to flirt with your wife, to ask her out on romantic dates, to create surprises for her. Use it as a way to empower your relationship. Don’t use it as a way to get to another woman.

Russ Morley: Let me ask you this about Jenn Sterger for just a moment. From what you read about this and seen the story, I mean she held on to the stuff for like two years until she did her Playboy spread. Do you see her as an evil individual or just a victim here?

Patrick Wanis PhD: I don’t know that she’s an evil individual. I think that most likely she must have been in some way turned off otherwise she would have said yes to Brett. If she just wanted to get hold of that, that power that Brett had and maybe then boast about it later, she would have gone ahead and slept with him but she chose not to.

The timing obviously is critical and maybe it is because of her career, and it’s another way to get publicity. But what’s interesting is, you know, a lot of people call her bad words and say she’s an easy woman. But obviously, she wasn’t so easy because she said no. So, what’s interesting is it creates a real dilemma for people in society. Whenever a woman like Jenn Sterger who promotes herself as, hey, I’m really sexy and look at my body, and you know, I’m a hot cowgirl – I think she calls herself a cowgirl or something – I’m the real cowgirl. So, she promotes herself that way but then sends the message and says, well, I’m still going to be choosy about who I sleep with or who I choose to hang out with.

Russ Morley: Alright. Dr. Patrick Wanis, thank you for your input. Always great to have you on this radio program. You want to pick up more from him, go to patrickWanis.com, patrickWanis.com. 7:57 on News Talk 850 WFTL.