Dwyane Wade is recalling one of the hardest conversations he ever had with his wife Gabrielle Union.
The NBA Hall of Famer recently sat down for a nearly two-hour interview with Shannon Sharpe for Sharpe’s podcast. The two discussed many topics, but what stuck out most was the thing Wade considered the most difficult talk he ever had with Union.
He said having that conversation was “way harder” than playing in the NBA playoffs.
“I tried to pussyfoot around it, I tried to break up with her.”
Wade, 41, and Union, 50, began dating in 2008, but by 2013 the couple were on a break, reportedly due to their busy work schedules.
During that time Wade admitted to fathering another woman’s son.
The retired NBA player believed it was in both of their interests to officially end their relationship, but Union wasn’t interested.
“I tried to break up with her: ‘Hey, you know things has been bad lately. We’ve been having a look at this relationship.’ Anyway, I tried all that. She kept showing up.”
But that doesn’t mean Union wasn’t hurt.
“It should go without saying that we were not in a good place at the time that child was conceived,” Union wrote. “But we were doing much better when he finally told me about the pregnancy. To say I was devastated is to pick a word on a low shelf for convenience,” she wrote in a 2021 essay for Time.
Wade was forced to confront his truth and confess to Union that he had fathered a child while the couple was on a break.
“You’re thinking about it all, it’s all scary,” he said. “One, the whole situation is scary enough, you’re a public figure. But you know that this is going to hurt someone that you’ve been building a relationship with and a life with.”
Despite informing Union of his son, the couple continued to work on their relationship, and by December 2013 they were engaged. They married the following year and after several years of infertility, the couple welcomed their first child, Kaavia James Union-Wade via surrogate in 2018.
“It hasn’t been perfect. It will never be perfect. But that was nine years ago, and we still go to therapy. We’ve had shouts about it. We’ve had regular conversations about it. And so it’s been something that is going to continue to be something that I have to work at, and it doesn’t go away because years come or because ‘I say sorry.’”
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