Michelle Finally Gets ‘Honest’ About Barack Marriage After He Confessed to ‘Digging Himself Out of a Hole’ Amid Divorce Rumors
Michelle Obama has always been open about her marriage. That is, perhaps, one of the reasons why people continue to be interested in the state of her marriage. She keeps talking about it. She also now has a podcast she co-hosts with her brother, titled IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson. So, some talk about her personal life is to be expected.
But recently, she got really honest about how hard it can be and why, perhaps, people shouldn’t really be looking at her and Barack Obama as role models. “I try to be honest with the world, with the people who follow me and Barack, to our girls, because, you know, people look at our marriage as the ideal,” she said. “In Instagram world, you see two loving people doing a hard thing in the world, always on stage, giving each other a hug after a big speech and making it look easy.”
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She added, “A lot of young people could look at that and go, ‘I want a marriage like Michelle and Barack.’ And it’s like, well, let me talk about what marriage is, because it’s even when it looks good, even when it’s great, it’s hard. And so I think it’s important because it’s very easy to quit on a marriage.”
The episode also saw her talking about how she and Barack have “done couples therapy” and explaining how “even in the best marriages, getting help, having periods where you need support, you need to think things through, is a normal part of making it through.”
It was a much more introspective conversation about her marriage, which she and her husband have sometimes joked about. The two have been plagued by divorce rumors since leaving the White House, and though this is pretty much the norm for celebrities, it has gotten a bit absurd for them and the way they respond to it probably doesn’t help.
Just recently, during an interview by historian David Olusoga, former President Obama responded to a question about his time post office with, “I was digging myself out of the hole I found myself [in] with Michelle,” according to the Daily Mail. “Now I’m at about level ground.”
A few days after that, he spoke about his marriage while at a Jefferson Educational Society event in Erie, Pennsylvania, saying, “I have spent over eight years now trying to dig myself out of a hole with Michelle,” adding, “And that’s been challenging, but I feel like I’m making progress. I’m almost breaking even at the moment.”
These things are said somewhat in jest, but people take them seriously. Even if just a few days after, the two are happily spending a weekend together on Steven Spielberg’s yacht.
Michelle Obama has also tried to temper expectations about how much of their lives they share, saying on NPR’s Wild Card with Rachel Martin. “It’s like, OK, so we don’t Instagram every minute of our lives,” the former first lady said. “We are 60. We’re 60, y’all. We just, you just are not gonna know what we’re doing every minute of the day, you know?”
But the marriage seems to be doing great.
