
Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are one of the cutest couples this side of a Hallmark movie. And we got to see plenty of them thanks to Barack serving as president of the United States for two successful terms. At that time, he was considered the most powerful man in the world. Because of that, you might assume that the former Commander-in-Chief is the one in charge when it comes to his marriage.
As it turns out, though, that’s not necessarily the case. Michelle Obama is a strong and successful woman in her own right, and it looks like she might wield even more power behind the scenes. In fact, there’s a growing body of evidence that she wears the pants in her marriage to Barack!
Don’t believe it? Or maybe you just want all the messy details? Either way, keep reading to discover the surprising signs that Michelle OBama is the girlboss of her marriage!
Michelle Obama put her foot down about having more kids

When Barack Obama was elected president, his family became famous right alongside him. That means Michelle Obama also became a household name, as well as their two daughters, Malia and Sasha. They never had any more children, something which most of us assumed was a mutual decision. However, Michelle later confirmed that Barack Obama had expressed interest in having a third child together.
This came out during Michelle’s appearance on Kylie Kelce’s Not Gonna Lie podcast. There, she said that her famous husband suggested “we should have a third,” causing Michelle to underscore that she was content to simply be a mother of two children. She also joked with him that having another kid would be a risk because “I’m thinking we’re gonna get a crazy one.”
She did soften her response with a compliment, telling Barack that he was perfect as a father to two girls. However, Michelle couldn’t resist teasing him, telling her husband that “you need a bunch of women in your life to smack you around.”
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Did Michelle Obama ensure Barack would become president?

In retrospect, it’s still pretty wild that Barack Obama was elected president. At the time, it seemed certain that Hillary Clinton would get the votes in 2008, becoming the next Democratic presidential contender. However, Obama seemingly came out of nowhere, winning everyone over with his charisma and his outsized personality.
Those factors seemed like enough to land him the big seat in the White House. But some contend that he would never have been elected president at all if not for Michelle Obama. In Jodi Kantor’s book The Obamas: A Mission, a Marriage, she makes the surprising claim that Barack Obama is actually very introverted. Because of that, he needed Michelle Obama’s extraverted and friendly presence who (as Kantor claimed to The Guardian) was “the one who connects him with other people.” Without that connection, the author asserts that, “I don’t think he would be president without Michelle Obama because she’s the one who connects him with other people.”
We’ll never know for sure, of course, unless Barack and Michelle Obama both make a statement about the matter. However, we have no trouble believing that Michelle was the great woman behind this particularly great man!
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She laid down the law (and boundaries) in her marriage

One of the most important concepts is that of the personal boundary. Most of us feel way too obligated to too many people, and we end up going to events that we’d rather skip. Fortunately, there are a few high-profile celebs who have modeled exactly how to lay down boundaries, and Michelle Obama is one of them!
In January 2025, Michelle was notably absent at two very high-profile events: the funeral of Jimmy Carter and the inauguration of Donald Trump. Barack Obama attended both, and Michelle’s absence caused much speculation about some kind of rift in their marriage.
The speculation got intense enough that Michelle Obama spoke about it on an episode of her IMO podcast. “My decision to make choices at the beginning of this year that suited me were met with such ridicule and criticism,” she said. “It took everything in my power not to do the thing that was perceived as right but to do the thing that was right for me.” She clarified that she was only recently learning to say no to things she didn’t want to do, and that’s something that all of us could learn from.
Setting the record straight about the bad years of her marriage

When Barack Obama was president, most people saw him and Michelle as a model marriage. However, in recent years, Michelle has grown increasingly blunt about the hard years of their time together. As reported by the Guardian, she admitted that “There were 10 years where I couldn’t stand my husband.”
She clarified that this was when their children “were little” and that powering through marital struggles was worth it. “10 years – we’ve been married 30. I would take 10 bad years over 30 – it’s just how you look at it.” She wrapped all of this up with encouragement for other married couples not to call it quits after a few bad years. After all, she and Barack are living proof that great things can happen to those who stay together and work through their issues.
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