Michelle Obama finally breaks her silence on divorce rumors with Barack; Reveals her “struggle with disappointing people”

Michelle Obama is moving on in her life and speaking up for her own.

It’s been over a year since the Obamas have been grappling with divorce rumors in their relationship, and the former First Lady of the United States of America is finally addressing it. The ex-FLOTUS recently opened up about her "struggle with disappointing people” amidst the divorce rumors with her husband and the former US President Barack Obama.


Here’s what she had to say about it.

The heart wants what it wants:

The former First Lady has been married to Barack Obama for 32 years, and together they have been serving ‘power couple goals’ for years now. However, it took a 180-degree turn last year, and the Obamas were hit with a widespread rumor of a potential divorce.

Michelle recently appeared on an episode of the ‘Work in Progress’ podcast with Sophia Bush, and opened up about her current equation with her husband, post their life in the White House.

The former First Lady opened up about decisions that she has made for herself since leaving the White House in 2017, and said, "The interesting thing is that, when I say 'no,' for the most part people are like, 'I get it, and I'm okay'. That's the thing that we as women, I think...we struggle with disappointing people.” Michelle added, “I mean, so much so that this year people were...they couldn't even fathom that I was making a choice for myself that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing. That this couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions herself."

The 61-year-old continued, "But that's what society does to us. We start, actually, finally going, 'What am I doing? Who am I doing this for?' And if it doesn't fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labeled as something negative and horrible."

Leading her ‘own’ life:

While Michelle emphasized during the podcast that she wanted to consider how she liked to spend her free time and ask herself, "Who do I truly want to be every day," she opened up about making her own decisions and thinking about spending her time, even when people float unfounded rumors.

She asked herself, "Who do I want to have a lunch with? How long do I want to stay in a place? Do I want to travel? If a girlfriend calls and says let’s go here, I can say yes. And I’m trying to do that more and more."

Michelle shared that she often ended up pondering, "If not now, when? What am I waiting for? How am I going to spend 20 years? Now is the time for me to start asking myself these hard questions of, 'Who do I truly want to be every day?'"

While answering these questions herself, she revealed, "I'm trying to do that more and more, so what does it look like? It looks like whatever I want it to look like, and I still find time to give speeches and to be out there in the world and to work on projects."

Looking back at her own life, Michelle remarked, “I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago, but I didn’t give myself that freedom. Maybe even as much as I let my kids live their own lives, I use their lives as an excuse for why I couldn’t do something.”

Michelle—who shares Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23, with Barack—gave some insight into how she's thinking about "making some big girl decisions" now that she's in her 60s.

She continued, “And now that’s gone. And so now I have to look at my — I get to look at my calendar, which I did this year, was a real big example of me, myself looking at something that I was supposed to do — you know, without naming names — and I chose to do what was best for me, not what I had to do, not what I thought other people wanted me to do.”

Putting the rumor to rest:

Last year, Barack Obama’s name was linked with none other than Jennifer Aniston, and rumors started swelling that it created a rift between the Obamas. To add more fuel to that fire, the former First Lady notably skipped President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, as well as the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter in January this year.

A few days ago, the former President said, while having a conversation with Hamilton College President Steven Tepper, that he was “in a deep deficit with my wife” after his two terms in the Oval Office ended. However, the former President acknowledged, “I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things.”

When Obama was asked, “But what is life like now out of the White House? What do you do? What do you enjoy doing? How do you spend your days?” the former US President responded, "Well, right now, at the moment, I’m splitting time between the work for the foundation. Michelle and I set up the Obama Foundation to train the next generation of leaders here in the United States and around the world, and that keeps me busy."

The father of two also added, "I am also finishing the second half of my presidential memoirs, which, in case any of you feel sorry for yourself, this is like 50 term papers. I mean, it just goes on forever.” But does he really enjoy writing? To answer that, Obama said, “Absolutely not, but I do enjoy having written when it’s finished. I’m hoping to get to the finish line on that."