By Victoria Edeme
Ex-President Barack Obama has restated his commitment to his marriage and, by implication, his wife of 29 years, Michelle.
As the couple marked their 29th wedding anniversary on Sunday, the former POTUS had tweeted at the mother of his two kids:
“Happy anniversary, Miche! Over the past 29 years, I’ve loved watching the world get to know you not just as a daughter of the South Side, but as a mother, lawyer, executive, author, First Lady, and my best friend. I can’t imagine life without you.”
The former First Couple had revealed that they nearly got divorced after the birth of their first child, Malia.
During a tour of her book, Becoming, which was launched with a countrywide videoed tour, Michelle had told one of her interviewers, Gayle King, that she and Barack were able to weather their marital storm after they had consulted with a marriage counsellor.
Ms King expressed regrets that she didn’t have the privilege to save her own marriage as Michelle did.
Also, in Barack’s new memoir, A Promised Land, the former POTUS had opened up about his and Michelle’s marriage issues after their eldest daughter, Malia, was born in 1998.
In the book, which launched on Wednesday, November 17, 2020, Barack explained that he was able to focus on being a father while he was at home with Malia that summer after she was born, but once his paternity leave ended and he had to return to work at three jobs (not to mention plan his run for Congress in 2000), he could not spend as much time with his family.
“Michelle bore the brunt of all this, shuttling between mothering and work, unconvinced that she was doing either job well,” Barack wrote. “At the end of each night, after feeding and bath time and story time and cleaning up the apartment and trying to keep track of whether she’d picked up the dry cleaning and making a note to herself to schedule an appointment with the pediatrician, she would often fall into an empty bed, knowing the whole cycle would start all over again in a few short hours while her husband was off doing ‘important things,’” Obama stated in the book.
Barack revealed that his schedule caused riffs in his marriage with Michelle, who didn’t think it was fair that he was devoting so much time to his career.
“We began arguing more, usually late at night when the two of us were thoroughly drained. ‘This isn’t what I signed up for, Barack,’ Michelle said at one point. ‘I feel like I’m doing it all by myself,’” he wrote.
That’s when Barack confessed that he considered ending everything. Their relationship took a turn for the better after Barack lost the Democratic primary race for Illinois’ 1st congressional district in 2000 and Barack realized how much his family meant to him.
He recalled the feeling when he was flying back on a plane after losing his congressional run. “I was almost 40, broke, coming off a humiliating defeat and with my marriage strained. I felt for perhaps the first time in my life that I had taken a wrong turn.”
The former president has continued to enthuse about his wife’s sexiness and support over the years.
Originally published at Punch