If you were to look up “excellent marriage,” you’d probably find a picture of Barack and Michelle Obama. While Barack served two terms as president, the Obamas became a household name, and we got to see how they supported each other despite the pressures of everything from politics to paparazzi. In short, these two quickly became #MarriageGoals to anyone paying attention to how much they loved one another.
However, this power couple got off to a relatively rocky start. That’s mostly due to the fact that Michelle Obama was unimpressed by her future husband when they first met. And even after they got married, the two attended marriage counseling in an effort to preserve their romantic union.
Why was Michelle unimpressed with Barack Obama when they first met? What drove the couple to therapy, and how did they emerge even stronger? Keep reading to find out!
Getting married relatively quickly after they met
Aside from how touchy-feely the two always appeared on camera, there are other reasons people assumed Barack and Michelle Obama have always been in love with each other. The biggest reason, arguably, is the speed at which their relationship moved. Once these two started dating, it didn’t take them long to figure out they wanted to spend their entire lives together.
Just how speedy are we talking? In short, Barack and Michelle Obama met and then tied the knot three years later. That’s relatively quick…in fact, we’d wager some of you reading this have dated people for three years or longer without getting hitched. These two, though, knew they wanted to build a life together, though Michelle is quick to point out it wasn’t exactly love at first sight.
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Michelle didn’t want to date Barack Obama at first
As a rule, our culture tends to value the whole love-at-first-sight thing a little too much. It’s easy to expect everything to work like a romantic film, with the music swelling as the man presents flowers and successfully asks the woman out. Real life is messier than that, though, which is why Michelle Obama repeatedly turned down Barack’s offers to take her out on a date.
According to Today, there were multiple reasons for this. He was hired to work in her law firm, and even though others told her how handsome and brilliant she was, Michelle remained skeptical of Barack Obama. “I was doubtful he’d earned the hype,” she said. Later, she saw his picture before meeting the man, and was “unmoved” by the “poorly lit headshot of a guy with a big smile and a whiff of geekiness.”
If this were a romantic film, then she would have met the man himself and been instantly blown away by his beauty and charm. However, even after meeting the real article, there were multiple reasons Michelle kept turning down his repeated invitations to go out on a date.
Other reasons Michelle didn’t want to date Barack Obama
While Barack Obama was serving as president, Michelle was basically forced to take a backseat. Her husband was running an entire country, so she had to focus on raising their children and being an impeccable first lady. But when Michelle and Barack first met, the shoe was on the other foot…he was the newcomer and she was the established lawyer at the law firm, and she also happened to serve as his supervisor.
As reported by Today, that’s one of the reasons she didn’t want to date the firm’s hot new hire. “Not once, though, did I think about him as someone I’d want to date,” she said. “For one thing, I was his mentor at the firm.” In addition to that, she had another powerful incentive to avoid temptation. “ I’d also recently sworn off dating altogether, too consumed with work to put any effort into it.”
Eventually, Michelle accepted Barack’s invitation, but only after he made the grand gesture of threatening to quit his job to avoid any professional conflict. They ended up grabbing some ice cream after a BBQ party, and the rest is history…though their romantic journey together still faced a rocky road after they got married.
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A happy marriage (and some significant bumps in the road)
When Barack and Michelle Obama got married, it was happily ever after…mostly. But ahead of the release of her memoir Becoming, Michelle Obama dropped the bombshell news that she and her husband had attended couples therapy together after their daughters (Malia and Sasha) were born. And the main crux of their need for this therapy is that Barack was often traveling, leaving Michelle to tend to their two kids on her own.
Fortunately, therapy helped her realize how the two saw things differently and how they could get on the same page together. “He didn’t understand distance in the same way,” she said. “You know, he grew up without his mother in his life for most of his years, and he knew his mother loved him dearly, right?”
This was very different from her own upbringing and expectations. “I always thought love was up close. Love is the dinner table, love is consistency, it is presence.” But after she learned to “share my vulnerability and…to love differently,” Michelle Obama and her husband became tighter than ever before.