Barack Obama Speaks on Strain the White House Put on his Marriage in Memoir

Obama And Supporters Rally On Night Of New Hampshire Primary

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Many people look at President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as couple goals. And while they are beautiful together, what makes them so relatable as a couple is the fact that they’ve been honest about the struggles they’ve faced in their marriage and how they’ve overcome them.

In her book Becoming, Michelle Obama shared her frustration with Barack’s work schedule when he was still a senator and how therapy helped her learn that she—and not her husband—was responsible for her happiness.

In his upcoming book, The Promised Land, former President Obama writes about the strain being President of the United States put on their marriage.

CNN published excerpts from the memoir, detailing his relationship with the former first lady. He speaks in detail about the tension he felt from his wife.

“And yet, despite Michelle’s success and popularity, I continued to sense an undercurrent of tension in her, subtle but constant, like the faint thrum of a hidden machine,” Obama wrote about his marriage. “It was as if, confined as we were within the walls of the White House, all her previous sources of frustration became more concentrated, more vivid, whether it was my round the clock absorption with work, or the way politics exposed our family to scrutiny and attacks, or the tendency of even friends and family members to treat her role as secondary in importance…”

Obama recollects a time in their marriage when their relationship was lighter without the political spotlight shining on them.

“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 was less encumbered, and my heart would suddenly tighten at the thought that those days might not return.”

Among other things, Obama discusses how the Republican party has become unrecognizable, how his approach with women often left him stuck in “affectionate but chaste friendships,” and how race made way for the likes of someone like Donald Trump ascending to the highest office in the land.

Obama’s third memoir follows his first two books, 1995’s Dreams from My Father and 2006’s The Audacity of Hope.

You can read the other excerpts here.

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