Barack Obama responds to Michelle Obama‘s previous claims that she ‘couldn’t stand’ him for the first ten years of their marriage.
The former president, who has been married to Michelle for 30 years, acknowledges his alleged part in her problems at the time.
“We’ve been married for 30 years,” Obama said in an interview Thursday with Gayle King on CBS. “If I fell out with him for 10, and we had a great 20 years, I’d take those odds anytime,” Obama said.
Obama made the statements in response to a query from King regarding her previous claim that she “couldn’t stand” her husband for many years of their marriage.
The former first lady and author then discussed the challenges of marriage.
“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 reality of marriage,” she told King.
“A lot of young people quit on marriage over things that are just a part of the commitment,” she said.
“I share these things because marriage is hard,” Obama said. “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 said.
“And don’t add kids into the mix because they really mess up your life,” joked Obama, who has two daughters with her husband.
It echoes a similar allegation made by Obama in December 2022, when she stated that “there were 10 years where I couldn’t stand my husband” while her girls were little.
Michelle Obama met Barack in a Chicago law company where she was assigned to mentor him, and the couple married in 1992. During Barack Obama’s two stints in office, they raised their daughters Malia, 24, and Sasha, 21.
