Actress and author Gabrielle Union has a message for those in relationships: not everyone that you encounter that are in relationships, are goals. Being in a few failed relationships herself, Gabrielle Union does not want others to follow in her footsteps. While promoting her latest book with, “You Got Anything Stronger,” Union spoke about these relationships and some advice over the years with ESSENCE.
Gabrielle Union is currently married to former NBA player Dwyane Wade and has been since August of 2014. Their relationship dates back to 2008, almost a year shy of Wade’s split with his ex-wife in 2007. However, the relationship has not all been a bed of roses for the couple. The L.A.’s Finest actress dealt with multiple attacks from Wade’s ex-wife, Siohvaughn Funches, as well as what many would call a “break baby.” During a period when Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union were on a break in their relationship, Wade conceived a son with former reality star Aja Metoyer.
Over the years, Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade have done their best to fight off the outside noise. This includes constant criticism from many on social media who constantly have things to say about Gabrielle Union’s choice to stay with her husband. Joyfully, the couple recently celebrated 7 years of marriage with “a lifetime to go,” as Union wrote in her Instagram caption commemorating their anniversary.
It’s been some years since Wade’s son with Metoyer, and Union is finally opening up about that time in her life. In her latest book, she discusses the then scandal, which she also spoke more of in her interview with ESSENCE. Gabrielle stated that throughout all of the criticism, she chose to focus more on the “wisdom from perspective,” as well as therapy and “personal evolution.”
The actress also shared what she has learned through all the years of offering advice to others in relationships. “Don’t take advice from anyone doing something that, you know, about anything that they haven’t succeeded at,” Gabrielle Union passionately said to interviewer Brande Victorian.
Using her own experience as a previously divorced woman, Gabrielle then stated that a woman such as herself with a “gang of relationship challenges” should be the last person that one seeks for wisdom. “You’ve already failed,” she expressed while laughing, to those that would look to her as a source of help. “I could give you my coulda, woulda, shoulda,” she added. “But at the end of the day, I didn’t. So be careful who and when you ask for advice about what to do in the moment.”
