Leaving the White House Completely Changed the Obamas’ Marriage 》

When he campaigned for president, Barack Obama electrified voters more than anyone could have anticipated. This helped him win both the 2008 and 2012 elections, with a majority of voters appreciating the strength and serenity this president brought to the highest office of the land. For his part, Barack Obama was always honest that much of his own inner strength comes from his awesome relationship with his wife Michelle.

Unfortunately, behind closed doors, life in the White House slowly threatened to destroy this happy union. How did Barack Obama’s time as president nearly destroy his marriage, and how did leaving the White House help turn things around with Michelle? Keep reading to find out!

Barack Obama’s political ambitions threatened his marriage

In addition to being a former President of the United States, Barack Obama is a very prolific writer. His books have given readers an intimate look into his mind and motivations, and in his presidential memoir In A Promised Land, he discussed his relationship with Michelle Obama in some very frank terms.

As reported by The Indian Express, one of the most shocking revelations within this book is that Michelle really didn’t want Barack to run for president. When he asked her directly about this matter, she responded, “The answer is no, I do not want you running for president.” She followed up by asking him a pointed question of her own: “God, Barack, when is it going to be enough?”

Obviously, Barack Obama went on to run for president, but Michelle wasn’t happy about it: her husband recounts that she only “begrudgingly” offered her support.

Barack Obama thought he might have lost his relationship with his wife

Another wild revelation from Barack Obama’s memoir is that he privately worried that becoming president might destroy his relationship with his wife. It wasn’t necessarily divorce he feared–instead of using that word, the former president wrote about his worries that he would lose the intimacy and emotional connection that brought him and Michelle together in the first place.

According to People, he wrote, “There were nights when, lying next to Michelle in the dark, I’d think about those days when everything between us felt lighter, when her smile was more constant and our love less encumbered and my heart would suddenly tighten at the thought that those days might not return.”

With the distance of time, he was also able to admit how bad things were during his interview with People, telling the magazine that constant marital tension “was the truth of our time in the White House.”

Michelle Obama’s shocking statement about her marriage

While Barack Obama has been very open about the stress that his time in the White House caused on his marriage, Michelle Obama spoke even more candidly on the matter. And what she revealed was shocking: that she more or less couldn’t stand her husband for ten years!

As The Guardian reports, she dropped this bombshell revolution in an interview with Revolt TV. Michelle notes that she was left having to support her husband’s political ambitions and raise very young children, all while the eyes of the world were on them. The result was that “there were 10 years where I couldn’t stand my husband.”

These statements reveal a marriage in trouble. Fortunately, these two found ways to reconnect together as husband and wife.

Barack Obama reveals the secret to reconnecting with Michelle

To hear both Barack and Michelle Obama tell it, their time in the White House had a profoundly negative effect on their relationship. Fortunately, this worked in reverse, and it turns out that leaving the White House after two successful terms as president was the best gift Barack could give to his wife.

In his interview with People, Barack admitted that this was mostly because “during the time we were there, Michelle felt this underlying tension. The pressure, stress, of needing to get everything right, to be ‘on’ at every moment.” To make matters worse, he’d know she was stressed out, but she couldn’t fully express her feelings and he couldn’t fully focus on her because “I had Afghanistan or the financial crisis to worry about.”

These days, the two can focus on each other. And that has had the pleasant side effect of helping these two fall in love all over again.

Life after the White House: finding each other once more

After becoming some of the most famous people on the entire planet, Barack and Michelle Obama discovered something that regular couples often struggle with. Here it is: at the end of the day, your relationship can’t really be very strong unless you make time to focus only on each other.

Now that Barack doesn’t have to worry about keeping America safe, he can focus on Michelle. And she can focus on her own needs without worrying about the distractions of one national emergency after another. As she later told People, “We are finding each other again.” Of course, it probably helps that the couple has taken vacations everywhere from Palm Springs to the British Virgin Islands…nothing like some beautiful and exotic views to bring the romance back in a marriage!