Gabrielle Union has entered her vulnerable era and is no longer interested in splitting everything 50/50 with her husband, Dwyane Wade.
In a May interview with Bloomberg Originals, the Being Mary Jane actress sparked a global debate when she revealed that she and her husband split everything 50/50, despite Wade reportedly being worth millions.
“I think I just have more responsibilities for my money. So I get nervous like, ‘Oh my God that movie didn’t open [well]. What does that mean? Am I going to have enough to hold everybody up?” Union, 52, said at the time.
“And everyone’s like, ‘It’s coming. Calm down.’ I’m trying to find peace in the journey, not using my anxiety and scarcity mindset to be my engine, which is hard. It’s weird to say I’m head of household because in this household we split everything 50/50.”
Nearly a month later, during an appearance on Club Shay Shay, her husband, Wade, 43, took the time to clarify what his wife’s “splitting everything 50/50” comment meant.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee explained to host Shannon Sharpe that the agreement stemmed from a comment he once made to the Bring It On actress when they lived in Miami.
“First of all, let’s say I have 20 to 50 responsibilities, and my wife has 20 to 50 responsibilities. Now, when I say that, that means she has her mother, she has her sisters, she has her dad, so she has a lot of things she’s responsible for,” Wade shared.
“She pays 100% of that, and you know what I do? I pay 100% of my life. When we were in Miami, I said something about it being my house that I paid for. My wife looked at me and said, ‘You will never say that to me again when it’s something that we share,” he continued.
“So, when we moved to [Los Angeles], my wife said, ‘I got half on it; you will never say my house again — you can say that in the arena!’”
Now, while appearing on the Balanced Black Girl podcast, Union admitted she’s in her vulnerable era and no longer wants to split everything 50/50 in her marriage.
She reflected on why she made the statement a few years ago and how she’s been working through her trauma, telling host Les Alfred that ‘wanting to split everything’ was actually a trauma response.”
“I famously said, ’50/50 or bust,’ right? And I meant that financially, spiritually, and emotionally. There’s just a lot of days that I have 10%, and I need him to be 90%. There’s day that I don’t have sh*t and I need him to be 100%,” Union told Alfred.
She continued, “It’s a trauma response. 50/50 is, ‘I’m not going to be vulnerable enough to trust you with 100% of anything. Not my heart, not my cash.’ When I started to really address that, I was like, ‘Do you want to pay the whole mortgage?’ I thought I was about to die.”
“I had such anxiety. I was crying. I was shaking. And he was like, ‘You insisted on that.’ He’s like, ‘I thought it made you feel better.’ I’m like, ‘It did, and right now I want to take it back.”
Union went on to explain her revelation about letting go of the need to split everything and now wanting to “expand her heart, expand all of the notions of what vulnerability can look like.”
“Now, it sounds crazy to be like, ‘You — Mr. NBA Superstar, who made a bazillion more amount of money than I do — can pay the mortgage.’ Because I hate the feeling of releasing that to someone. And [when] you release that to someone, chaos can happen,” she said.
“It’s brought us closer. Because he knows it’s not about whether he can afford it. It’s being vulnerable enough, to be open enough to know that I’m okay. I’m okay as his wife. He’s okay as my husband. I’m okay in this family. I’m okay in this home. I deserve it. And so, I’m trying to expand my heart, expand all of the notions of what vulnerability can look like.”
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