As Kelly Stafford prepared to celebrate her 10th wedding anniversary with husband Matthew Stafford, she candidly admitted things haven’t always been easy.
“Marriage is f***ing hard,” Kelly, 35, said on the Thursday, April 3, episode of her “The Morning After” podcast. “Anyone who tells you differently is f***ing lying through their teeth.”
Kelly and Matthew, who is the quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, got married in April 2015 after meeting during their time at the University of Georgia.
Prior to tying the knot, Kelly said “you put yourself first all the time.”
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“Now all of a sudden, you’re putting someone else first,” she added. “There’s kids involved. It just becomes tougher and tougher with the more things thrown your way.”
Kelly and Matthew, 37, share four daughters: twins Sawyer and Chandler, 8, Hunter, 6, and Tyler, 4.
“There’s been so many ups and downs in our marriage. There really has,” Kelly admitted. “I would say the first year of marriage was really, really hard.”
After getting through that first year, the couple had to deal with other roadblocks. In April 2019, Kelly underwent successful brain surgery to remove a benign tumor. Two years later, Matthew was traded to the Rams after spending the first 12 seasons of his NFL career with the Detroit Lions.
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“When you’re going through it, you’re like, ‘Why is God doing this to me?’” Kelly said of the journey. “Really, God’s doing it for you.”
Kelly acknowledged there was also a shift in her relationship when Matthew transitioned “from college to the NFL.” After three years at Georgia, Matthew was selected with the No. 1 overall pick by the Lions in the 2009 NFL Draft.
“I’m not saying he changed as a person,” Kelly said. “He’s still the same guy that I’ve always known when it comes to his personality and the way he is with people and stuff like that. But I will say, there was something that I had to adjust to, which was the more crazy, fun Matthew to the professional Matthew.”
Kelly continued, “That was something I was thrown off by. All of a sudden, we couldn’t go dancing at the bars and we couldn’t do the things I used to love to do. That was the adapting period. I had to be like, ‘OK, this is a change and I’m going to support that change and be with you with it.’”
