Michelle Obama has sat down with Oprah Winfrey for the ultimate debrief.
In an interview for the , Obama, 54, spoke about those eight years as first lady and the impact Barack Obama’s political career had on their marriage.
“When you get married and have kids, your whole plan, once again, gets upended. Especially if you get married to somebody who has a career that swallows up everything, which is what politics is,” Obama said. “I’m trying to hold everything down while he’s travelling back and forth from Washington or Springfield.”
Having recently revealed in her upcoming memoir, Becoming,Obama has opened up about the work that has gone into her marriage with Barack. “There was work we had to do as a couple,” she told Oprah. “Counseling [sic] we had to do to work through this stuff.”
When asked about what she learned from going to couple’s therapy, Obama was surprised it wasn’t just the counsellor validating her issues with her husband. “You go because you think the counselor is going to help you make your case against the other person. 'Would you tell him about himself?!',” she said. “And lo and behold, counselling [sic] wasn’t that at all. It was about me exploring my sense of happiness. What clicked in me was that I need support and I need some from him. But I needed to figure out how to build my life in a way that works for me.”
She continued: “I had to learn how to express that to my husband, to tap into those parts of me that missed him—and the sadness that came from that—so that he could understand. He didn’t understand distance in the same way."
In an interview that also covers Trump, the state of America and why she is still optimistic for the country, she also showed why the Obamas will always be #couplegoals.
“I always thought love was up close. Love is the dinner table, love is consistency, it is presence. So I had to share my vulnerability and also learn to love differently. It was an important part of my journey of becoming. Understanding how to become us."
