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- Michelle Obama spoke about the ups and downs in her marriage on Jay Shetty's "On Purpose" podcast.
- She said she doesn't want people viewing her and Barack Obama as perfect "hashtag couple goals."
- Obama has previously said she "couldn't stand" her husband for a decade of their marriage.
Michelle Obama set out to dispel the myth that she and Barack Obama have a perfect relationship on an episode of Jay Shetty's "On Purpose" podcast released Monday.
Obama has previously spoken candidly about her 31-year marriage. While promoting her book "The Light We Carry" in 2022, she revealed she "couldn't stand" Barack for 10 years after the birth of their daughters until she realized that "marriage isn't 50/50, ever."
Obama told Shetty that she speaks publicly about her and Barack's struggles to let people know that such difficulties are normal in long relationships and that persevering through them can be worthwhile.
"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," she said.
Without openly discussing these challenging periods, she said, people may hit "natural, understandable rough patches" in their relationships and "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,'" she said.
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Obama said that while individuals should determine "quit-worthy" aspects of their relationships for themselves, couples can expect to have "decades" of thinking "I don't know if I like you," even if they ultimately love and respect one another.
"That's just the way it goes, but you don't quit on it, you learn from it," she said. "That's what sustaining a relationship is — it's the choice to figure it out, not quit when it gets hard."
Watch the full interview here: