Posted on 05/10/2020 3:30:01 PM PDT by Eddie01
People reports Michelle Obama’s nearly 30-year relationship with her husband Barack Obama was strengthened by marriage counseling.
In her best-selling memoir Becoming, the former first lady, 56, is candid about the difficulties she and her husband faced over the years. Though their commitment to each other has remained steadfast since they married in October 1992, their lives got more complicated as they struggled to get pregnant, and after they had their two daughters Malia and Sasha.
Mrs. Obama revealed she suffered a miscarriage and was only able to conceive the girls through in vitro fertilization (IVF). After their daughters were born, the couple had to balance her high-powered law career with her husband’s burgeoning career as a politician and the stress of being new parents.
And in her new Netflix documentary Becoming, the mother of two reflects on their early years as a couple. “He was very different, and he was different from me, and he challenged me in different ways. I knew he was a tsunami coming after me, and if I didn’t get my act together, I would be swept up,” she says. “I didn’t want to just be an appendage to his dreams. So that forced me to work and think, and make decisions like leaving law.”
Recalling a transitional period in their relationship, Mrs. Obama also some of the concessions she made on behalf of their growing family.
“My relationship with Barack was all about our partnership. If I was going to have an equal voice with this very opinionated man, I had to get myself up. I had to set myself off to a place where I was confident that I was going to be his equal,” she says.
“The thing that really changed it was the birth of our children. That really made it harder. Something had to give and it was my aspirations and dreams. I made that concession, not because he said, ‘You have to quit your job.’ It felt like, ‘I can’t do all of this. So I have to tone down my aspirations. I have to dial it back,’ ” she adds.
In the Netflix documentary, Mrs. Obama is also open about her and her husband’s marriage counseling, a topic she also addressed in her memoir and book tour.
Speaking to moderator Gayle King, Mrs. Obama admits she initially thought counseling would “fix” the former president.
“Counseling helped me to look at, ‘How do I take control of my own happiness within our marriage?’ But it’s hard, it’s hard. It is hard blending two lives together,” she explains, later adding, “And in my view, I took Barack to marital counseling so that they would fix him. And then he started looking over at me. I was like, ‘Why are you talking to me?’ I am perfect. He is the problem.”
With the help of marriage counseling, Mrs. Obama reminded herself not to forget to also prioritize her happiness. “One of the things I learned that helped me, and I think helped our marriage was that my happiness is not dependent on him making me happy. And sometimes I felt that that was one of the rubs,” she says.
“My resentment for him was that Barack was prioritizing himself, in a way. We had babies; he was at the gym. I was like, ‘How do you find time to work out?’ I was like, ‘So let me stop being mad at him for going to the gym and let me get to the gym,’ you know?” she tells King and the audience.
[snip]
Can't wait for the Netflix special! /s^3
Has Michael completed the transition?
Yeh..no sale.
What was nice about politicians and public figures of the past was that they didn’t engage in public psychobabble, and considered it wrong to reveal their intimate secrets to the world.
Why is she suddenly doing all this blabbing when there’s been hardly a peep out of her for almost 4 years?
Mooch is overacting the “beard” role.
She had 8 years to bore everyone with the story of their relationship. Wasn’t that enough?
Drugs
“All this for a damn flag?”
Laff of the day.
The White House years...
Yes dear...
How high dear...
Right away dear...
Don’t hurt me dear...
Because, Madame President?
Strange how the time spent playing center for the NY Knicks gets no mention in this memoir.
Yup, OK.
Uh, and why are we supposed to give a ....?
Her high-powered law career?! So high-powered she later gave up (or had taken away) her law license?!
Big Mike saw some meat he/she wanted.
I’m going to barf.
You notice the kids went back to the real parents. No peep out of them either.
IVF?
I guess Bammy couldn’t seal the deal.
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