Listen, I’ve got more than a couple of doubts about the institution and performance of marriage, especially when it’s on heterosexual terms. But if marriage were a corporation looking for some good publicity, they might want to reconsider trotting out Michelle Obama as their spokesperson, because that woman is committed to speaking the ugly (and imperative) truth about loving someone unconditionally.
During an interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings Thursday, the former First Lady revisited the topic of her widely publicized albeit temporary disdain for her husband, former President Barack Obama. After discussing her upcoming book and podcast, King asked Obama about the “times you said you didn’t like [your husband].”
“What’s the controversy?” Obama quipped.
“That you said it out loud!” King replied. What she’d said, to be precise, was that for an entire decade of their relationship, she “couldn’t stand” her husband.
“We don’t like everybody every day, it is impossible! Marriage is hard…We’ve been married for 30 years,” Obama told King. “If I fell out with him for 10 [years], and we had a great 20 years, I’d take those odds anytime.”
That is certainly a glass-half-full take, but 10 years of strife? Is any marriage worth that? When Barack was promoting his memoir in 2020, he acknowledged repeatedly that Michelle never wanted him to go into politics and that choosing to pursue what would become a presidential run “hurt her in a lot of ways,” per his interview with Vanity Fair at the time. So yeah, no wonder Michelle didn’t like him for 10 years! She had to put her entire life and career on hold and raise their kids in an unimaginable setting, while her husband was tasked with leading a country that’s arguably the “Florida Man” of the developed world. This, while navigating their new lives as the country’s first Black couple to live in the White House, and the torrent of racism that came with it.
“In this day and age, marriage is more about the dress, and the dresses, and the proposal, and the honeymoon and all the stuff around it. And young people aren’t ready for the real of marriage,” Obama said. “A lot of young people quit on marriage over things that are just a part of the commitment…I share these things because marriage is hard.”
“It’s incumbent upon us—people who have had successful marriages—to be really honest about the fact that making a commitment to be with someone means you compromise, and compromise ain’t always fun,” she added. “And don’t add kids into the mix because they really mess up your life.”
I’m glad someone in such a high position of power is being honest about marriage. Meanwhile, join me in screaming for Michelle as she takes the reins of her own career and centers her own desires and needs while looking fucking great, thanks to longtime stylist Meredith Koop. Barack can hold down the fort for at least 10 years, right?