Former President Barack Obama made sure his wife, Michelle Obama, was celebrated with great fanfare on her 61st birthday.
“Happy birthday to the love of my life, @MichelleObama,” Barack, 63, wrote via X on Friday, January 17. “You fill every room with warmth, wisdom, humor, and grace — and you look good doing it. I’m so lucky to be able to take on life’s adventures with you. Love you!”
Barack also uploaded an image of the couple holding hands from across the table while at a private dinner.
Michelle, for her part, reposted her spouse’s note, captioning it, “Love you, honey!”
When Michelle Obama met Barack Obama in 1989 at the Chicago law firm where they both worked, it was not exactly love at first sight — even though he was quite popular around the office. “In my experience, you put a suit on any half-intelligent Black man and white people tended to go bonkers,” Michelle […]
Barack and Michelle have been married since 1992 after meeting a decade earlier during their early legal careers in Chicago. They went on to welcome daughters Malia and Sasha in 1998 and 2001, respectively. (Sasha completed the family seven years before Barack was elected president of the United States for his first of two consecutive terms.)
Throughout Barack’s political career, fans have frequently praised his seemingly perfect marriage.
Happy birthday to the love of my life, @MichelleObama. You fill every room with warmth, wisdom, humor, and grace – and you look good doing it. I’m so lucky to be able to take on life’s adventures with you. Love you! pic.twitter.com/WTrvxlNVa4
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 17, 2025
“I don’t want people looking at me and Barack like hashtag couple goals and not know that no, no, there are some broken things that happen even in the best of marriages,” Michelle said during an episode of the “On Purpose With Jay Shetty” podcast in January 2024. “After 31 years, yeah, we still do [cross the line], but you know it quicker. And then you apologize. You learn how to say my bad, right? That takes a second, right?”
She added, “I talk about marriage because I just think that No. 1, most people don’t talk about it. What happens is that by not knowing, you hit, in your relationship, some natural, like, understandable rough patches, and you want to quit. And it’s like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not quit-worthy. That’s just the nature of things.’ That’s why I joked, it’s like, ‘Oh, you’re mad at your partner, you’re mad for a year and you think the marriage is over.’”
Michelle Obama got real about why her marriage to Barack Obama isn’t always “couple goals,” despite fans praising their romance. “I don’t want people looking at me and Barack like hashtag couple goals and not know that no, no, there are some broken things that happen even in the best of marriages,” Michelle, 59, said […]
For Michelle, she and Barack have been able to “learn from” the hardships instead of giving up.
“Of course, it’s going to be hard, you know, but I wouldn’t trade in my marriage for anything in the world with all the ups and downs, with all the running for president stuff,” Michelle added at the time. “And if we hadn’t hung in there, we would have missed all the good.”
The Obamas are now empty nesters as both Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23, have each graduated from college and moved out of the family home. The sisters are still roommates, frequently inviting their parents over for drinks.
“We were going to take them to dinner, and they said, ‘Why don’t you come over to our spot for cocktails?’” Michelle recalled on the Today show in 2022. “We were like, ‘OK, let’s see what this is going to be like.’ Well, [first], the martinis were a little weak. I don’t think they really knew what it was.”
