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Similar stories of the tensions that exist between Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick have been documented by enough people now that they’re hard to deny.

But a new book says that Brady nearly reached his breaking point this offseason.

According to “Belichick: The Making of the Greatest Football Coach of All Time,” by ESPN’s Ian O’Connor, Brady’s relationship with his coach was clearly part of the reason he seemed torn about returning this year.

“If you’re married 18 years to a grouchy person who gets under your skin and never compliments you, after a while you want to divorce him,” a source close to the pair told O’Connor. “Tom knows Bill is the best coach in the league, but he’s had enough of him. If Tom could, I think he would divorce him.”

He apparently considered it, but realized this spring there was no reasonable way to do it.

“But in the end, even if he wanted to, Brady could not walk away from the game, and he could not ask for a trade,” O’Connor wrote. “The moment Belichick moved [Jimmy] Garoppolo to San Francisco, and banked on Brady’s oft-stated desire to play at least into his mid-forties, was the moment Brady was virtually locked into suiting up next season and beyond. Had he retired or requested a trade, he would have risked turning an adoring New England public into an angry mob.”

So in effect, according to this telling of the now-familiar tale, Brady made the decision to stay together for the kids and swallow whatever resentment he had to to keep the family together.