Gabrielle Union. Source: Gotham / Getty
Gabrielle Union shared that she wasn’t always focused on being a good wife. During an appearance on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast she admitted to being a cheater while married to former NFL player Chris Howard from 2001 to 2006.
The Think Like A Man star said that since she was the one bringing home the coins, she was entitled to cheat. She said she “was paying all the bills” and “working my a** off” so she felt “entitled” to cheat.
”I felt that that’s what comes, the spoils of riches,” she said. “Like my dad before me, whoever has the most gets to do whatever the hell they want, is what I thought.”
She admitted that her cheating was fueled by being “horny for validation and having certain kinds of guys like me and want me. That made me feel like I was worthy and good and valuable and deserving.”
The Infidelity Was A Two-Way Street
Ultimately, infidelity fell on both her and Howard. Union said it was a combination of trying to keep up with her husband’s behavior and feeling entitled. Dating was something both of them felt shouldn’t get in the way of their marriage.
Union said when they went to marriage counseling, the therapist pointed out that they didn’t have anything in common besides “other people.” The 43-year-old said the therapist asked them “so why don’t you just go be with other people?”
“We randomly came back around as more healed people and more open to understanding our complicity in some of the challenges that we created for ourselves,” she said.
Overall, she said her marriage to Howard shouldn’t have made it as far as it did. “It was such a stupid relationship that should have never got out of the dating phase,” she said.
Her marriage to Dwyane Wade is the total opposite of her previous marriage. Union said that she and Wade have no problem communicating and calling each other out.
“We are way easier to point the finger, you did this to me, you caused that, this person did this, and it’s like, okay, we’re grown,” she continued. “I’m super-grown at this– I’m 40+ at this point and it’s like, I don’t want to live like this. None of this feels good and it’s exhausting and I want a love that feels like freedom.”
Union summed up her and Wade’s marriage as both of them now being free to choose themselves and choose each other everyday.
