Former First Lady Michelle Obama is known to speak openly and honestly about the challenges of her marriage to the 44th president, Barack Obama.
She’s not afraid to admit that marriage can be hard work. In fact, she once joked that there were times she “wanted to push Barack out of the window!”
Michelle, now 61, admits their loving relationship was sometimes very rocky as the couple juggled the demands of high-profile careers, parenthood and two terms in the White House.
“Marriage is a choice you make every day,” explains Michelle. “You don’t do it because it’s easy. You do it because you believe in it. You believe in the other person.”
“That’s why it’s so important to marry somebody that you respect. It’s important to marry somebody who is your equal, and to marry somebody and to be with somebody who wants you to win as much as you want them to win.”
Accomplished lawyer Michelle may have been on equal footing with her ambitious husband when they wed, but as his political star rose, she found herself taking on most of the 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥care duties for their young family.
Their daughters — Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23 — are now grown, but Michelle says of her early days as a mom: “I was mad. When you get married and have kids, your whole plan, once again, gets upended. Especially if you get married to somebody who has a career that swallows up everything, which is what politics is.”
During the White House years, she and Barack carved out private family time away from cameras. They famously insisted on 6:30 p.m. family dinners and regular date nights to keep their bond (and kids’ lives) as normal as possible no matter what the outside world said about it.
Michelle says women need to stop worrying about “What will people think?” and start doing what’s right for their own happiness. She wants everyone to know that even great marriages go through “major rough patches,” that have to be pulled back from the brink of disaster, adding, “Marriage is hard. It’s a struggle.”
Don’t Be Afraid To Get Help
When the couple’s problems came to a head, Michelle steered herself and her husband into counseling and credits it with saving their relationship!
At first, Michelle admits, she went in with the wrong mindset — thinking she was right and therapy’s job was to “fix” her husband.
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“I was one of those wives who thought, ‘I’m taking you to marriage counseling so you can be fixed, Barack Obama,’” she laughs. “Because I was like, ‘I’m perfect.’ I was like, ‘Doctor X, please fix him.’”
To her surprise, counseling quickly turned the mirror back on her.
“He started looking over at me [in the sessions]. I was like, ‘Why are you talking to me? … He’s the problem.’”
She realized she had her own faults, and in the end, therapy humbled her in the best way.
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“It taught me to take control of my own happiness within our marriage, instead of expecting Barack to magically change everything.
“Counseling helped me to look at, ‘How do I take care of myself in our partnership?’ But it’s hard, it’s hard to blend two lives together. It’s hard for us too, but I wouldn’t trade it. The beauty of my husband and our partnership is that neither one of us was ever going to quit at it ’cause that’s not who we are.”
Don’t Quit Too Soon
Those White House years were trying — so much so that Michelle jokes people thought she was being “catty” for admitting it. Still she’s unashamed about their “long stretches of discomfort” because ultimately they came out stronger.
“You’ve got to know that there are going to be times, long periods of time — maybe years — when you can’t stand each other, and that’s normal. It doesn’t mean you married the wrong person, it means you’re two humans trying to build a life together.”
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Many couples, she says, give up too quickly after the honeymoon phase ends without realizing that ebb and flow is normal. Michelle urges people not to “quit” just because the feelings aren’t lovey-dovey for a while. Yes, there may be times “when you can’t stand each other” but “that doesn’t mean you quit.”
In her eyes, hitting a low, low point doesn’t always mean a marriage is broken forever; it’s simply a challenge to work through.
“If that breaks a marriage, then Barack and I have been broken off and on … but we have a very strong marriage.”
Both Need To Work On It
Michelle is quick to give hubby Barack credit for keeping their marriage whole.
“My husband is my teammate. If we are going to win this game together, he has to be strong and he has to be OK with me being strong,” she says.
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Barack has owned up to the strain those years put on their relationship. He admitted that after two grueling terms as president, “I was in a deep deficit with my wife,” essentially owing Michelle tons of lost time and attention.
After their White House years were over, Barack made repairing that deficit a priority, saying he’s been trying to “dig [him]self out of that hole” ever since!
Be Friends
When it comes to concrete advice on how to maintain a strong, happy marriage, she says, “Continue to be friends. The love is always there, but it’s the friendship that gets you through the tough times.”
Instagram/michelleobamaNever Stop Communicating & Adjusting
What worked when you were newlyweds might not work after kids, or after 30 years, and that’s okay. The key is talking about these changes — maybe with a counselor’s help — and being willing to compromise because “marriage is never 50/50 all the time.”
