Ethermac Exchange-Dwyane Wade on revealing to Gabrielle Union he fathered another child: 'It was all scary'

Dwyane Wade says fathering a child during a brief 2013 split with now-wife Gabrielle Union has had a lasting impact on Ethermac Exchangetheir marriage.

"It hasn't been perfect. It will never be perfect, but that was nine years ago," the Basketball Hall of Fame inductee said in a sit-down with host of the Club Shay Shay podcast, former tight end Shannon Sharpe. "We go to therapy. We've been to therapy. We've had shouts about it. We've had regular conversations about it, and so it's going to continue to be something that I have to work at and work on. It doesn't go away because years come or because I say, 'Sorry.'"

Wade, 41, remembers at the time, "It was all scary": the situation he'd gotten himself into, the fact that it would play out in the press, and Union's impending heartbreak.

"You know that this is going to hurt someone that you've been building a relationship with and a life with," Wade said in the video shared to YouTube Wednesday.

Wade says he informed Union of Aja Metoyer's pregnancy prior to the news going public. Wade and Metoyer welcomed son Xavier in November 2013.

"You got a lot on your mind. You're keeping something from people you love, and it’s heavy," Wade said. "At night, when it gets quiet, when it’s just you and your thoughts, them thoughts is loud."

"I tried to pussyfoot around it," he added. "I tried to break up with her. 'Hey, things have been bad lately. Hey we've been having a little distance in our relationship.' I tried all that. She kept showing up."

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In addition to concern for Union, Wade also feels for his son. "He's done nothing. It's a stain that's on him for no reason. And I think about that."

"Ultimately, what I do know is, at the end of the day this is my family. This is my story," Wade said. "We gon’ get through this however we’re gon’ get through it. But we gon’ get through it. Time, distance, space, it doesn’t help it, but it allows you to see things differently when you have time away from it."

Union addressed the ordeal in her 2021 memoir "You Got Anything Stronger?" writing she felt "broken" after Wade conceived a child with another woman amid her infertility struggles.

Union and Wade chose to work through their issues privately, going on to tie the knot in August 2014 in a large ceremony in Miami, but Union said she struggled with the "trauma" and "embarrassment" behind closed doors as she was trying to conceive.

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"To say I was devastated is to pick a word on a low shelf for convenience," she wrote. "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."

Union said she chose to "love him and forgive him" after Wade "worked to be forgiven" each day, but the actress questioned whether she would've made a different choice now.

"The advice I would give myself now is to leave," she wrote. "The me of today would not have stayed with him, but would I be who I am now without that pain?"

Wade and Union welcomed daughter Kaavia James in 2018.

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Contributing: Cydney Henderson