Strange Things About Barack And Michelle Obama's Marriage
Barack and Michelle Obama are probably best known for being the 44th President and First Lady of the United States. But perhaps their greatest achievement is their successful, longstanding marriage to one another. As Michelle penned in a commemorative Instagram post on October 3, "31 years, and a lifetime to go. I love going through life with you by my side, @BarackObama. Happy anniversary, honey!" Meanwhile, Barack also took a moment to acknowledge the special date and brag about his "brilliant, kind, funny, and beautiful" wife. "I'm lucky to call you mine," he gushed in his own post.
As happy as they are together, the lucky-in-love married couple has never been one to shy away from discussing the ups and downs of their longtime union. According to Michelle, they never want to project a misleading facade of a perfect marriage. "It's unfair to the institution of marriage, and it's unfair for young people who are trying to build something, to project this perfection that doesn't exist," she told The New York Times Magazine in 2009. And as it turns out, there are some pretty strange things about the Obamas' famous marriage...
Michelle Obama initially turned down Barack Obama
Even the 44th President of the United States can't win 'em all! The story goes that the first time Barack Obama asked Michelle Obama out on a date, she refused. "I asked her out. She refused. I kept asking. She kept refusing," Barack divulged in a piece he wrote for O, The Oprah Magazine in 2007. According to Barack, the future first lady didn't find it appropriate as she was currently serving as his adviser at the Sidley & Austin law firm they both worked at.
According to Michelle, however, work wasn't the only reason she wasn't interested in dating Barack. "I thought, 'Oh, here you go. Here's this good-looking, smooth-talking guy. I've been down this road before,'" Michelle revealed in the confines of the 2009 biography "Obama: From Promise to Power," written by David Mendell.
Eventually, however, Barack wore Michelle down... but only after he offered to quit his job as a solution. "I treated her to the finest ice cream Baskin-Robbins had to offer, our dinner table doubling as the curb. I kissed her, and it tasted like chocolate," he wrote. Is there anything ice cream can't fix?
Barack and Michelle Obama are very different
While it's evident that Barack and Michelle Obama are a match made in heaven, it turns out that they couldn't be more different at their core. "We are, in many ways, very different people, my husband and I," Michelle penned in her book, "The Light We Carry." While Barack prefers to stay up late into the night by his lonesome reading and writing, Michelle enjoys rising early and the hustle and bustle of a crowded room. But that's not all. How they disagree with one another is also very different. "Barack wants to talk rationally, and I'm like, 'rational?'" Michelle told Oprah Winfrey during the last episode of her "Michelle Obama: The Light" podcast. She added that when she's angry, she's not interested in having a conversation with Barack until she's in a more calm frame of mind. In fact, she doesn't want to see him at all until then!
Michelle, however, insists that she and Barack's differences are also what makes their marriage work. "We are the epitome of opposites attract," she declared to Conan O'Brien during the Milwaukee stop of her "Becoming" book tour.
The Obamas didn't live together full-time for many years
Perhaps one of the strangest things about the Obamas' marriage was their living arrangement prior to moving into The White House. According to Michelle, the couple had not cohabitated full-time since 1996 due to Barack's career. While serving as a state senator and then U.S. senator, Barack Obama commuted from the family's home base in Chicago to Springfield, Illinois, and Washington, D.C, respectively. That meant he was only home on the weekends. "This is the first time in a long time in our marriage that we've lived seven days a week in the same household with the same schedule, with the same set of rituals," Michelle Obama told The New York Times Magazine in 2009. "That's been more of a relief for me than I would have ever imagined." In yet another interview, Michelle told People that having all of the family back under one White House roof brought them closer together.
As for Barack, he also agrees that the White House was a good move for the couple. "The surprising truth is that being in the White House has made our family life more 'normal' than it's ever been," he penned in a guest essay for MORE magazine. And since leaving the White House, the couple continues to spend each night together, whether it be in their stately home in Washington, D.C., or their waterfront mansion on Martha's Vineyard.
Michelle Obama accidentally called herself a 'single mother'
Oopsie daisy. In 2013, then-first lady Michelle Obama committed quite the blunder when she accidentally referred to herself as a "single mother" during an interview with a CBS news channel. "Believe me, as a busy single mother," she started before catching the mistake. "I shouldn't say single. As a busy mother, sometimes, when you know you got a husband who's president, it can feel a little single. But he's there," she added.
Fortunately, it appears no offense was taken by the husband, father, and sitting POTUS. During an interview with TODAY, Barack noted that he prefers to give anyone — especially his wife — a free pass when it comes to stumbling over their own words. "But there's no doubt that there've been times where Michelle probably felt like a single mom," he added. He went on to explain that while campaigning for the presidency, the couple would sometimes go a week without seeing one another — and all the while, Michelle was not only holding it down as a mother to their daughters but also as a career woman — certainly no easy feat.
Michelle Obama 'couldn't stand' Barack Obama for 10 years
Barack Obama may have been the 44th President of the United States, but that doesn't mean he's always been the king of the castle at home. Case in point: a particularly rough patch in the couple's marriage that spanned a whopping 10 years. "People think I'm being catty by saying this — it's like, there were 10 years where I couldn't stand my husband," Michelle Obama confessed during a December 2022 panel discussion on Revolt TV. "And guess when it happened? When those kids were little," she added.
Fortunately, the Obamas were willing to stick it out and put in the work. In April, Michelle told CBS Mornings that the key to getting through those hard times was simply not to quit. "A lot of young people quit on marriage over things that are just a part of the commitment," she said. "We've been married for 30 years. If I fell out with him for 10, and we had a great 20 years, I'd take those odds anytime," she declared. It's clear sticking it out worked for them!
The Obamas marriage is not 50/50
Michelle Obama also revealed that her marriage with Barack Obama was not 50/50. She admitted this to her fellow Revolt TV panelists, including Kelly Rowland, Tina Knowles, and model Winnie Harlow. "There are times I'm 70, he's 30. There are times he's 60/40," she explained. But that's not all. She also discussed the disparity during an interview with NPR. "Somebody was always giving more," she divulged about their marriage dynamic. And it appears that most of the time, that "somebody" was her.
Back in 2009, Michelle explained matter-of-factly to The New York Times Magazine that the scales of balance were off in their marriage due to her husband's role as President of the United States. "Clearly Barack's career decisions are leading us. They're not mine; that's obvious. I'm married to the president of the United States. I don't have another job, and it would be problematic in this role. So that — you can't even measure that." Still, she was careful to note that behind closed doors, particularly when it comes to their family life and their children, things were much more even. As the old saying goes, "Happy wife, happy life!"