The Hollywood couple spoke out about the ups and downs of marriage over the weekend.
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are well aware of what goes into making a marriage work for the long haul.
The 49-year-old rapper and actor reposted a family photo that his wife shared on Saturday, which features the longtime couple and their daughter, 17-year-old Willow, as well as Will's 25-year-old son, Trey, from a previous marriage, walking and laughing outside. The couple's 20-year-old son Jaden, who was notably absent from the shot, was away working.
"I’ve been watching a lot marriages dissolve around me," Jada wrote in the caption, which Will also shared. "It’s been really painful. Marriages change. Sometimes they need to be reimagined and transformed. Sometimes they are simply over."
The Girls Trip actress continued, stating that she hopes others can "find the patience and love" to consider their children during the troublesome time.
"But either way, I pray that folks going thru this painful transition find the patience and the love within to not throw the 'babies' out with the bath water," she said, emphasizing the hashtag "#family."
Jada also gave her perspective on forgiveness in an early-morning video posted on Sunday, stressing that it all starts with giving oneself grace.
"I've been sitting here just thinking about forgiveness, and it's been a deep journey for me because I've had to look into the shadows of my own heart and understand how I've hurt other people and forgive myself for any wrong acts that I might have committed or any pain I might have caused other people," she said while lying in bed.
The star added that we're all "in this together learning how to love."
"I had to clear myself of my own shame, my own guilt and have compassion and forgiveness for myself," she noted. "And that actually gave me the power to forgive other people. It came through me releasing myself. None of us are perfect. Forgiveness is not really about the other person, it's really about us."
In the video's caption, Jada said that it's crucial to "find the 'God Love' within that gives us the 'Self Love' we need to forgive."
"It’s all a delicate process where I also had to realize that just because my heart may embrace and forgive... doesn’t mean that person should be standing beside me," she wrote.
Will and Jada, who have been married for over 20 years, have talked at length in the past about the ups and downs of marriage. Last month, the Suicide Squad star revealed that the two don't even say they're married anymore but rather prefer the term "life partners."
"We refer to ourselves as life partners, where you get into that space where you realize you are literally with somebody for the rest of your life,” Will shared on TIDAL's Rap Radar podcast. “There’s no deal breakers. There’s nothing she could do -- ever. Nothing that would break our relationship. She has my support till death and it feels so good to get to that space.”
Jada recently echoed that sentiment during the Sway in the Morning radio interview.
"Here's the thing about Will and I -- [we] are family. That is never going down. It’s just not. Ever,” she said, referencing divorce. "We are family. Take out all that whole marriage/relationship crap, at the end of the day, Will and I are family. I am going to hold him down, doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, that is a man that can rely on me for the rest of his life, period.”
Their statements came after Will addressed divorce rumors last spring in his track, "To the Clique."
“Stop the divorce rumors and mind your damn business,” he raps on the track, his first taste of new music -- aside from one single, “Get Lit,” in 2017 -- since his 2005 album, Lost and Found.
For more on how the power couple make their marriage strong, watch the video below.
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