Michelle Obama Gets Real About Couples Therapy With Barack

Michelle Obama is getting candid about the ups and downs of marriage following stubborn divorce rumors that have plagued her and former president Barack Obama, ever since she opted to skip Trump’s inauguration. Speaking on an episode of Steven Bartlett’s “The Diary of a CEO” podcast, the former first lady didn’t shy away from the truth about marriage, generally speaking.

“There are so many natural reasons why marriage, infertility [and] trying to have kids makes things difficult,” Obama said. “I try to tell couples, ‘Of course it’s hard. Just listen to what I said, like, if you’re having some issues in your marriage, it’s not you. It’s the process of marriage. It’s just all hard.’”

Obama then added that she thinks people “give up too quickly” on marriage.

“If you’re not getting help, talking about it [and] going to therapy, just understanding how things are changing, how do you continuously renegotiate your relationship with your partner?” She asked. “I just see people quitting because they look at me and Barack and go, ‘Hashtag couple goals.’ I’m like, ‘It’s hard for us too, but I wouldn’t trade it.’ He is, as the young people say, my person.”

Barack and Michelle tied the knot in Chicago in 1992. They welcomed their eldest daughter, Malia, in 1998, followed by Sasha in 2001. The family of four then moved to the White House when Barack was elected President of the United States. He served two consecutive terms, from 2008-2016. Barack later admitted to being in a “deep deficit with my wife” following the conclusion of his political career.

“The beauty of my husband and our partnership is that neither one of us was ever really going to quit at it ‘cause that’s not who we are,” Michelle told Bartlett. “I know that about him [and] he knows that about me.”

As for her decision to skip Trump’s inauguration? Obama says it had absolutely nothing to do with her marriage.

“People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason; they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” she said on her IMO podcast earlier this month. “It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the thing that was right for me. That was a hard thing for me to do.”