Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen's divorce was not caused by one dramatic decision, despite the convenient theory that his brief 2022 retirement settled everything. Bündchen has said the marriage had been unravelling for years, as the couple struggled to balance Brady's consuming NFL career with family life and her own needs.

“That takes years to happen,” Bündchen told Vanity Fair in 2023, rejecting the idea that the relationship ended within months of Brady deciding to play another season. He announced his retirement in February 2022, then reversed course barely a month later at age 44. Apparently, leaving professional football proved harder than posting about leaving professional football.

Football had strained the marriage for years

Brady's devotion to the sport had long created tension at home. During a 2020 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, he acknowledged that Bündchen felt he was not carrying his share of the family responsibilities.

“She didn't feel like I was doing my part for the family,” he said, adding that she believed he played football throughout the season while she took care of the house.

Bündchen later pushed back against claims that she did not support his ambitions. Building a life with Brady and their children had also been her goal. The former couple share Benjamin, 16, and Vivian, 13. Brady also has a son, Jack, 19, with actor Bridget Moynahan.

“You give a hundred percent of yourself,” Bündchen told Vanity Fair. “And it’s heartbreaking when it doesn’t end up the way you hoped for, and worked for, but you can only do your part.”

She described the suggestion that she left because Brady wanted one more NFL season as “the craziest thing” she had heard. In her account, his return to the field was one visible part of a much larger problem, not a single cause with a tidy date attached.

A private trip tried to save the marriage

Lars Anderson's book Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness, published Sept. 29, adds new details about the couple's final months together.

According to Anderson, Brady requested an extended absence from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 2022 training camp to deal with a personal matter. Only a small number of people within the organization reportedly knew that he travelled to the Bahamas with Bündchen in an attempt to repair their marriage.

At the time, head coach Todd Bowles told reporters only that Brady was “going to deal with some personal things.” The quarterback returned after 11 days, but staff members could see that something was wrong.

Tight ends coach Rick Christophel told Anderson that Brady remained gracious with colleagues, although his mental state appeared troubled.

“You could tell that some very serious things were bothering him,” Christophel said. “He was constantly thinking of his family.”

Representatives for Brady and Bündchen were contacted for comment about the book's account.

Bündchen wanted Brady to be more present

In an Elle interview published on Sept. 13, 2022, roughly a month after Brady's unexplained training-camp absence, Bündchen spoke openly about her concerns.

She called football “a very violent sport” and said she wanted her husband to spend more time with their children. Those discussions, she added, had happened “over and over again.” Even so, she said the decision to continue playing belonged to Brady and that “he needs to follow his joy, too.”

When Brady cancelled his retirement, he said he had realised his place remained “on the field and not in the stands.” He thanked his teammates and his “supportive family,” saying none of his career would have been possible without them.

As the 2022 NFL season began, however, Bündchen was noticeably absent from games. On Oct. 28, the pair announced both their separation and the completion of their divorce. In separate Instagram statements, they expressed gratitude for their years together and said they remained committed to co-parenting.

Brady later admitted that the season had taken a heavy personal toll. Speaking on The Herd in January, the 49-year-old said he had faced a difficult family issue that affected his ability to keep playing.

“It just took a lot out of me,” he said.

Their priorities changed after the split

Brady retired permanently in 2023 after 23 NFL seasons, including 20 with the New England Patriots and three with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He now works as Fox's lead NFL analyst.

He told The Herd that retirement finally allowed him to attend his children's activities. “They’ve been to enough of their dad’s games,” he said.

That shift came too late to preserve the marriage. On the 2018 Facebook Watch documentary series Tom vs. Time, Brady had described the end of each football season as a sudden adjustment after months of spending 10 to 12 hours a day training, practising and playing. At the family's 14,000-square-foot home in Brookline, Massachusetts, he acknowledged the value of being there when his children woke up and before they went to bed.

Bündchen, now 46, has since built a family with Joaquim Valente. The couple welcomed a son in February 2025. In a Dec. 31 Instagram post, she wrote that becoming a mother again had reshaped her time, priorities and heart.

Her explanation of the divorce remains less sensational than the public theory, but considerably more believable. She and Brady wanted similar things when they met, she said, then gradually discovered that they no longer did.

“Sometimes you grow together; sometimes you grow apart,” Bündchen told Vanity Fair. “That doesn’t mean you don’t love the person.”