Gabrielle Union opened up about her love life like she never did before, specifically with regard to the time when husband, Dwyane Wade, fathered a child when they were still starting to build their own family.
Though some may see Gabrielle and Dwyane as the ultimate couple goals, their relationship isn’t always that smooth sailing.
Gabrielle, 48, and Dwyane, 39, married in August 2014 but before that, the former NBA star got another woman pregnant. He welcomed a son, Xavier, who is now 7 with Aja Metoyer, Basketball Wives star. He proposed to Gabrielle anyway later that year.
The actress shared a more detailed account into what happened then in her new book published on September 14, You Got Anything Stronger.
She wrote, “To say I was devastated is to pick a word on a low shelf for convenience. I have not had words, and even after untold amounts of therapy I am not sure I have them now. But truth matters.”
The Bring It On actress revealed she had adenomysosis and it was difficult for her to get pregnant. She said that Dwyane assured her then, “As much as we want this baby, I want you…We’ve lost too much in our relationship for me to be okay with encouraging you to do one more thing to your body and your soul.”
She recalled, “The experience of Dwyane having a baby so easily—while I was unable to—left my soul not just broken into pieces, but shattered into fine dust scattering in the wind. We gathered what we could to slowly remake me into something new. There was no way to disguise where I’d been glued back together.”
She also thought, “This woman is such a failure. And she has the nerve to be old. And she has the nerve to have a younger husband. And she has the nerve to stick with a guy who had a kid with somebody else.”
She continued, “So much of what made the decision so difficult was that if I didn’t submit to a surrogacy, then I was convinced I needed to let Dwyane go. Even if he didn’t want to, I had to let him find someone who could give him what he wanted. But I loved him.”
“Each day, he had worked to be forgiven, and I had chosen to love him and forgive him. And part of this journey of making peace with our love is also making peace with ourselves.” She also explained that if it hadn’t been for their struggles, Dwyane wouldn’t have become the man he wanted to be.
The couple finally welcomed their child Kaavia James in 2018 through surrogacy. Meanwhile, Dwyane is also a dad to Zaire, 19, Zaya, 14, and his 20-year-old nephew whom he adopted, Dahveon Morris.
Gabrielle reflected, “I can never know if my failure to carry a child put a ceiling on the love my husband has for me. Yes, I am Baby Mama number three, a label that is supposed to be an insult. If I am telling the fullness of our stories, of our three lives together, I must tell the truths I live with. I have learned that you can be honest and loving at the same time.”
