Michelle Obama, Barack Obama Most Candid Relationship Confessions | E! News

Here's all the times Barack and Michelle Obama have been candid about their decades-long relationship. In a March 2025 episode of her podcast, IMO, Michelle explains that the couple had to keep their head down about rumors during their time in the White House. Let me tell you, there was a lot of negative energy floating our way. A lot of rumors, a lot of gossip. I don't think I have ever once looked at a comment section, period. At all, ever. Barack waited until his 2020 memoir, A Promised Land, to open up about their relationship, where he details how difficult it was to watch Michelle come under scrutiny during his presidency, writing, Lying next to Michelle in the dark, I'd think about those days when everything between us felt lighter, when her smile was more constant and our love less encumbered, and my heart would suddenly tighten at the thought that those days might not return. In a discussion with Hamilton College President Stephen Tepper in April of 2025, the former president recognizes the support Michelle provided him with, saying, I was in a deep deficit with my wife, so I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things. Back in 2018, Michelle explains to Robin Roberts in a Good Morning America interview that she and Barack used couples counseling as a tool to improve their relationship. Marriage counseling for us was one of those ways where we learned how to talk out our differences. What I learned about myself was my happiness was up to me. But even through the turmoil, Michelle reveals her relationship with Barack is always worth working through the challenges. There were 10 years where I couldn't stay in my husband. You do say that. 10 long years. And guess when it happened? When those kids were little, right? Guess what? Marriage isn't 50-50 ever, ever. There are times I'm 70, he's 30. There are times he's 60, 40. But guess what? 10 years, we've been married 30. Wow. I would take 10 bad years over 30. It's just how you look at it.