Michelle Obama admits there was a point in her marriage when she ‘couldn’t stand’ Barack
During a Revolt TV roundtable, Michelle Obama gave #relationshipgoals a reality check, saying, "marriage isn't 50/50, ever, ever."
Michelle and Barack Obama may be #relationshipgoals, but they’ve also faced very real challenges in their 30-year marriage, well before making history in the White House.
The former first lady and bestselling author of “The Light We Carry” discussed one of the couple’s most tenuous times during a “cross-generational conversation” on Revolt TV in mid-December (PEOPLE). Appearing alongside fellow guests Kelly Rowland, H.E.R., Winnie Harlow, Tina Knowles-Lawson and moderator Angie Martinez, Obama admitted that during the years the couple was raising daughters Sasha and Malia, there was a full decade that she “couldn’t stand” her husband.
“People think I’m being catty by saying this — it’s like, there were 10 years where I couldn’t stand my husband,” she said. “And guess when it happened? When those kids were little.”
As it happened, the impasse occurred while both Obamas were also balancing increasingly demanding careers — and as Barack was venturing into politics.
“[F]or 10 years, while we’re trying to build our careers and, you know, worrying about school and who’s doing what and what, I was like, ‘Ugh, this isn’t even,'” Michelle recalled. “And guess what? Marriage isn’t 50/50, ever, ever.”
That difficult phase has long since passed, and the former “Mom-in-Chief” further broke down the realities of how the Obamas’ marriage works and why it has endured.
“There are times I’m 70, he’s 30. There are times he’s 60, 40, but guess what? Ten years — we’ve been married 30,” she said. “I would take 10 bad years over 30 — it’s just how you look at it. And people give up … ‘Five years; I can’t take it’.”
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