It happens all the time to the athletes' families. It is made all so easy by the fact that we do not always experience them as people but as objects and as places to dump our own projective and reactive feelings of betrayal over a lost game or missed field goal. The stresses and strains of the wives families of football players and professional athletes in general are unique. All families rise and fall together. But those in the public eye are constantly seen in their fishbowls.
Entertainers are household names and their lives become fodder for the media.
Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's every move are familiar to anyone who follows Entertainment Tonight or the gossip pages of their newspaper. But the private lives of the majority of sports figures, except situations with some real notoriety such as the controversy surrounding the Mets' Carl Everett, are not of great interest to the public. Only a real Jets buff knows whether Adrian Murrell is married or single. Sometimes this is a blessing in disguise. Giving way to a huge emotional psychological struggle to establish and retain their own identity.