Although she is looking for a partner, the actress said she’s “really learned how to live life and enjoy it and not sit around waiting”
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Tracee Ellis Ross shares her gratitude for the decision she’s made in her love life.
The Emmy-nominated actress, 52, recently opened up about how she noticed a pattern that she has a tendency to date men younger than herself while appearing on the April 16 episode of Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson’s IMO podcast.
The Blackish star, 52, and former First Lady, 61, briefly discussed women making their own decisions within their relationships. As they continued, Ross said her desire for a relationship like that correlated with her tendency to date men younger than her.
“A lot of men my age are steeped in a toxic masculinity and have been raised in a culture where there is a particular way that a relationship looks,” she said. “Anything that starts to smell of that for me — I did enough of it where I was controlled and felt like I was a possession or a prize — I just have no interest in it. And I will not do it again.”
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Ross acknowledged that her comment is an overgeneralization, but said she has seen a difference and “openness” with younger men.
“I have long been past the age where I feel like it’s my job to teach somebody or grow them up,” she said. “That, I’m not interested in.”
She noted that while she continues to date, she has also “really learned how to live life and enjoy it and not sit around waiting.“
Ross also confessed that although she enjoys the “bigness of [her] life,” she has found herself mourning the wedding and life she once dreamed of as a child.
“I grieve the things that I thought would be and that are not,” she admitted. “I’m not married. I don’t have children, and I think I grieve that at times.”
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“As much grief does surface for me around not having children and not having a partner,” she said, “I still wouldn’t want the wrong partner.”
“I’m not interested in that,” she stated. “You have to make my life better. It can’t just be, ‘I’m in a relationship to be in a relationship.’ So even though the grief does emerge and that comes and I hold that, I think of what I’ve done. I wake up every morning trying to do my best. I didn’t wake up one morning and be like, ‘I’m going to mess this day up.’ So I must be where I’m supposed to be.”
