Why Do Women Marry Men They Don't Love? What the Vrabel & Russini Story Is Really About

I've been quietly watching the Mike Vrabel and Dianna Russini story unfold for the last few weeks. If you haven't been following, here's the short version. He's the head coach of the New England Patriots. She was, until recently, one of the biggest NFL insiders in the business, reporting for The Athletic. They were photographed together at an adults-only resort in Sedona this spring. Both of them are married to other people. Both of them have denied everything.

I went into this curious about the affair. I came out of it stuck on a completely different question. And it's one I think a lot of women already know the answer to, even if we don't say it out loud.

The timeline that doesn't really add up to coincidence

The denials are what got people digging. Internet sleuths started looking, and what came out is a six-year pattern that's tough to chalk up to chance.

In March 2020, the two of them were photographed at a bar in New York City. He was very married. She was about six months from getting engaged. In June 2021, the two of them rented a private boat together in Tennessee. Just the two of them on the water for three hours. She was pregnant with her first child. In January 2024, they were photographed at a casino in Mississippi, just weeks after he got fired by the Titans. A witness assumed she was his wife. And then in March of this year, they were photographed at an adults-only resort in Sedona holding hands, hugging, side by side in the pool and the hot tub.

None of this has been confirmed. Both of them deny it. They don't owe anyone an explanation of their personal lives, and I'm not the morality police. I'm just doing the math the rest of the internet has already done.

Her own words are the part I can't get past

This is where it gets harder to wave off as nothing. Because some of what's most damning isn't a photo. It's her, on national TV, in her own words.

There's a 2020 Barstool clip where she's playing a Family Feud-style game and Vrabel is also on the call. She's asked what a man could do to put a woman in the mood, and she says "kiss her." He chimes in, "I'm paying very close attention. I'm so excited."

There's a cluster of clips where she's talked, publicly, about her own marriage. She's called her husband average. She joked on ESPN that she was going to be divorced by Christmas and posted it herself with the caption "I blame Aaron Rodgers for my potential divorce." On another show, she said her own mother thought her marriage was falling apart.

And then there's the Le Batard show clip where she talks about doing an interview with Jimmy Garoppolo the night before her own wedding. She said her mother wanted her to marry him. She called meeting Garoppolo the night before her wedding "a sign." She said she stayed skeptical about her own husband, in her own words, until she met him at the altar.

The night before her wedding. A sign. Skeptical until the altar.

So why was she getting married?

That's the question I cannot stop turning over. Not whether they were having an affair. Not whether the photos were innocent. The question is — if her gut was telling her something the night before her own wedding, why did she walk down the aisle?

And here's the thing. I could name five women off the top of my head right now who've admitted some version of the same thing to me. Women who told me, in retrospect, they knew on their wedding day. Women who got married because they were worried about getting older and wanted kids. Women who stayed in a relationship that was fine, that was nice, that wasn't quite right, because the alternative felt scarier than the wrong decision.

I know one man who told me he knew on his wedding day that if he had a list of thirty things he wanted from a relationship, his wife had twenty-nine of them. But the one missing was a big one. He stayed.

Why do women marry men they don't love? The real reasons

The reasons most often given for marrying someone you aren't fully in love with are pretty consistent. Fear of being alone. Fear of starting over. Worry that you've already invested too many years. Pressure from family, from culture, from a timeline that says you should be married by a certain age. The biological clock — which, by the way, is a metaphor that was literally coined in a 1978 magazine article designed to pressure career women. It's not a biological fact. It's a marketing line that became a deadline.

And then there's the quieter reason. The absence of a strong no. The relationship is fine. He's kind. You have fun. Nothing is on fire. So you mistake the absence of no for the presence of yes, and you walk down the aisle on a maybe.

The cost of that is what nobody talks about until it's too late. Because a maybe isn't actually a foundation. A maybe is a structure waiting for the right wind.

The yes-no problem and why staying out of guilt costs both people

I've said this before on the show and I'll say it again. Don't mistake the absence of no for the presence of yes. If you cannot say a full-throated yes to the person you're marrying, the wedding day is the wrong place to figure that out. Ending a relationship that's pretty good but not quite right is one of the hardest things you can do — because there's no villain to point at, no clear reason, just a knowing. But staying out of guilt or fear doesn't protect the other person. It just delays the conversation, and usually makes it worse.

If I were the one being stayed with out of obligation, I'd want to know. I'd want the chance to find someone who actually wanted me. I think most people would. We just convince ourselves staying is the kinder option, when really it's the more comfortable one.

What the Vrabel-Russini story is actually about

I have no idea what's true between Vrabel and Russini. I don't need to. The reason this story matters isn't them. It's the question their timeline raises for the rest of us. Because the woman who married the safe option, the man who married out of obligation, the person who walked down the aisle skeptical — those people aren't strangers on a celebrity-news site. They're sitting at the dinner table. They're your friends. Some of them might be you.

The affair is the clickbait. The settling is the actual story.

FAQ

Why do women marry men they don't love?

The most common reasons are fear of being alone, social and family pressure to marry by a certain age, anxiety about starting over, worry about wanting kids before time runs out, and a belief that a relationship that's good enough on paper is safer than waiting for something they actually want. Many women describe walking down the aisle with doubts they pushed through rather than listened to.

Is it normal to have doubts before getting married?

Some pre-wedding nerves are normal, but research and lived experience both suggest that deep, persistent doubts about whether your partner is right for you are worth taking seriously. A 2012 UCLA study found that women who had doubts before their wedding were two and a half times more likely to be divorced four years later than women who didn't.

How do you know if you married the wrong person?

The signs people most often describe in retrospect are a feeling of staying out of obligation rather than wanting to be there, persistent emotional distance, fantasizing about a different life, and a sense that something fundamental was missing from the beginning that they tried to overlook. Knowing isn't the same as acting on it, which is why so many people stay.

What's the difference between settling and being realistic in a relationship?

Realistic means accepting that no partner is perfect and being willing to grow with someone over time. Settling means choosing a partner because you're afraid of the alternative rather than because you genuinely want them. The clearest test is whether you're saying yes because you want this person or because you're scared of what happens if you don't.

Why do women stay in marriages they're not happy in?

The most common reasons are fear of starting over, financial entanglement, having children together, worry about how it will affect family and friends, and a belief that no marriage is fully happy so leaving wouldn't change much. None of those are character flaws. They're real pressures. But they don't make staying the right call.

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