The Michelle Obama Podcast is the gift that keeps on giving!
To accompany a recent episode of the pod where she talked about marriage with Conan O’Brien, Michelle Obama shared a never-before-seen photo on Instagram from her wedding to President Barack Obama. In the caption of the photo, she wrote:
“Last week on The #MichelleObamaPodcast, Conan and I reflected on our marriages. This relationship can be one of the most foundational pieces of our identities — bringing us so much joy, meaning, and support every single day. But one thing is for sure: It also takes a lot of work; a lot of honesty with ourselves and our partners. That’s one thing I’ve learned.”
SO CUTE!
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Within the episode, the former First Lady was open about the difficulties of marriage (she even jokingly admitted to wanting to “push Barack out of the window” at times). She explained:
“People aren’t perfect. Marriage is hard. It’s a struggle for everyone. But, the question you have to ask is do you want to spend this life with somebody? Do you want to build something with someone? And there’s no magic way to make that happen.”
Obama described looking for a life partner with an apt sports metaphor, saying:
“If you’re looking at a team, the people you want to win with, then number one you want everybody on your team to be strong. You don’t want any weak links. You don’t want somebody that you can dominate. You don’t want somebody who’s kind of a loser, right? And also, if you’re on a team, you’ve got to be able to do everything, especially in basketball, it’s like, you would never pick somebody that says, ‘I only dribble. I don’t shoot, I don’t defend, I just dribble.’ … If we looked at marriage as a real team, you want your teammate to be a winner. You want LeBron, you know?”
She also spotlighted the unique challenges that parenthood places on a marriage. She shared:
“The division of labor in a marriage also becomes real clear when a child comes, because if your wife is breastfeeding, if she has a career, she’s gonna have to make a different set of sacrifices than you do. Just the act of giving birth creates an inequality in opportunities … physically the whole structure means that, you know, he’s got sort of a leg up because he didn’t have to do any of this.”
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Michelle continued:
“At least in my marriage, that was the first time I felt the sting of gender roles. And I had to be there, and I had to go, and it was my body, and my husband was still sort of bopping around, living his life…The resentment starts to build up, or it started to. It’s like, well, what happened to the unit? What happened to my best friend? What happened to my buddy, who’s at the gym? It’s like, ‘How the hell are you at the gym?'”
This is such a fascinating insight into the lives of such a famous and beloved couple. We’re sure there are a LOT of married folks out there who can related to this — and plenty of people who can benefit from Michelle’s wisdom!
[Image via WENN]
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