10 times Barack and Michelle Obama gave us relationship goals

Michelle Obama, keynote conversation with Gayle King, ESSENCE Festival, New Orleans, July 2019. She continued: "My husband is my teammate. If we are going to win this game together, he has to be strong and he has to be okay with me being strong. I do not want a weak player on my team, nor does he." The framing — a marriage as a team you either want to win or you don't — is one she returns to often. Photo: AFP

Barack Obama, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, taped 11 February 2016, aired 12 February 2016. It was Barack's first in-studio appearance on the show since taking office — timed, appropriately, to Valentine's Day. Behind the joke is something true about long partnerships: the willingness to stop fighting battles that don't need fighting. Photo: AFP

Michelle Obama, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, December 2018. Michelle was on the show promoting her memoir Becoming. She described going into counselling expecting it to "fix" Barack: "I was like, 'I'm taking you to marriage counselling so you can be fixed, Barack Obama.'" Photo: AFP

Barack Obama, interview with The New York Times, 2009. He added that being unable to take his wife out to dinner without it becoming a political story was not something he accepted easily. The presidency is, by design, a fishbowl. The Obamas chose not to let it become their whole life. Photo: AFP

Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times (Crown, October 2022). The book, and her subsequent press tour for it, saw Michelle speak at length about what she described as young people's tendency to give up on relationships during difficult stretches. She told NPR in October 2022 that people "quit before they've really played out the full scenario" and urged them to expect "long stretches of discomfort" rather than the weddings they see online. Photo: AFP

Michelle Obama, Instagram post, October 2022. The post, in which she described Barack as her "one real home," put into plain language something that is rarely said about long marriages: that the ideal of perfect equality is a fantasy Photo: AFP.

Michelle Obama, The Oprah Winfrey Show, 2011, Asked what had made her marriage last, she told Oprah: "I stopped believing in love at first sight. I think you go through that wonderful love stage, but when it gets hard, you need a little bit more." Photo: AFP

Michelle Obama, The Michelle Obama Podcast (Spotify), episode featuring Conan O'Brien, September 2020. She was clear that the feeling — of not being able to stand your partner — is not the exception in a long marriage. It can last "a long time. Years." Photo: AFP

Barack Obama, Essence, January 2013. It came up in the context of his daughters' futures, but the wider observation stands: children absorb what they see at home, and setting a standard is one of the most lasting things a couple can do. Photo: AFP