Fashion
President Obama’s New Book Offers an Intimate Look at Marital Struggle—And Enduring Partnership
In “A Promised Land,” the Obamas’ candor and honesty about their struggles redefines what #couplegoals looks like—not glossy, uncomplicated romance but a partnership that’s worth fighting for….
Barack and Michelle Obama could easily allow the world to believe their marriage is perfect. For many people, the first Black couple in the White House is a beacon of goals, famously fist-bumping on the campaign trail and swaying cheek to cheek as Beyoncé crooned “At Last” at the inaugural ball. On the historic night he won the presidency in 2008, Barack lifted Michelle up: “I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years, the rock of our family, the love of my life.”
But as the former president reveals in his new memoir out Tuesday, A Promised Land, the Obamas’ marriage was continually strained by his political ambition, even in its earliest days. As an Illinois state senator elected in 1995, Barack shuttled between the state capital in Springfield and Chicago, where Michelle was still working in law and caring for baby Malia. The couple “began arguing more, usually late at night when the two of us were thoroughly drained,” Barack writes. “This isn’t what I signed up for, Barack,” Michelle said at one point. “I feel like I’m doing it all by myself.” For two people whose roles would later become so extraordinary, their conflict was surprisingly common: a young couple trying to make their marriage, family, and careers work. In her own 2018 best seller, Becoming, Michelle wrote about going to couples therapy during this era—a revelation that dragged the practice out of the shadows for people across the country.
The Obamas had a rom-com-worthy meet-cute at Sidley Austin, the Chicago law firm where Michelle was assigned as Barack’s mentor. “She was tall, beautiful, funny, outgoing, generous, and wickedly smart—and I was smitten almost from the second I saw her,” he writes in A Promised Land. They were friends before he persuaded her to give him a chance. An adoring Barack calls Michelle “an original; I knew nobody quite like her,” even if “in those early years of our courtship, our arguments could be fierce. As cocksure as I could be, she never gave ground.” He recalls her older brother, Craig, joking that Michelle would never get married because “she was too tough—no guy could keep up with her. The weird thing was, I liked that about her; how she constantly challenged me and kept me honest.”
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