Michelle Obama is putting all those divorce rumors to rest. The former first lady is explaining why she’s taking control of her schedule and why it’s affecting her family, especially with rumors that she’s divorcing former President Barack Obama.
On the Work in Progress podcast hosted by Sophia Bush, Michelle talked about how she’s taking full ownership about what she wants to go to and what she doesn’t. Her responsibilities as first lady and a mother helped inform her. “Now, you know, I can’t blame my decisions and indecisions on anyone other than me,” Michelle said, adding, “I think if I’m honest with myself, I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago. But I didn’t give myself that freedom.”
Even the former first lady has trouble saying no. “That’s the thing that we as women struggle with — disappointing people. I mean, so much so that this year people couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself. That they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing.” The rumors kept swirling when people started to notice that she was absent from President Jimmy Carter’s funeral and President Donald Trump’s inauguration, which are events that are usually a tradition that the former living first ladies attend.
“This couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions herself, right? But that’s what society does to us,” she continued. “We start actually going, what am I? What am I doing? What 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.”
An insider told InTouch Weekly that the two have been dealing with their struggles privately. “They’ve been married for three decades and don’t need to be on top of each other 24/7,” the insider explained and revealed that they have a couple’s therapist.
Michelle previously explained that the past year has been a “rough year,” because of her mother’s passing. “So, she simply chose to stay out of the spotlight for a while,” the insider said. “It hasn’t helped that she’s been under a lot of pressure to be more outspoken on current events, but she’s never liked politics — that’s Barack’s thing.”
Despite the ongoing rumors, Michelle continues to be optimistic and open about talking about her marriage with the former President. “People always ask me and Barack, how did we stay hopeful in, not just the eight years that we were in the White House, but beyond?” she said in her podcast IMO. “Because, let me tell you, there was a lot of negative energy flipping our way—a lot of rumors, a lot of gossip, a lot of, you know, my husband wasn’t born in this country…we weren’t patriotic, he didn’t get into Harvard.”
“But through it all, what kept us sane — and we tried to instill this in our daughters — is, you cannot live through social media,” she said, adding that she’s certain that she’s never “once looked at a comment section.”
“Don’t let that negative energy enter into your space. These are people who don’t know you. A lot of this stuff is made up, and it does not feed you,” she concluded.
