How President Obama is Ruining My Marriage
It’s very inspiring to see a couple who love and respect each other as much as President Obama and Michelle Obama do. It’s clear in every interaction that they are each other’s best friend, and closest confidante. Their public displays of affection (including the “terrorist fist jab”) are legendary. They’re always hugging and kissing and gazing lovingly at each other.
But seeing their public love fest every day is making me grumpy.
Take Inauguration Day, for example. My husband and I watched as the new president and first lady made appearances at all 10 official balls. As we watched them dance over and over again, I got a little misty eyed. I looked over at the love of my life as he lay on the couch and I got inspired. I stood up and reached out my hand. “Honey, would you like to dance with me?”
Now, I will say that it was about 11 p.m. at this point. His response? “Nope, I don’t feel like dancing.” And with that, he rolled over on the couch and closed his eyes as if he was going to sleep.
I’m heated. “You know, President Obama would never say no to Michelle,” I huff. He kind of opens one eye, laughs and goes back to sleep.
I turn back to the TV, with a bit of jealousy mixing in with my emotional high. “He just made his wife First Lady, but I can’t get my husband to get off the #@$%^&!% couch,” I mutter to myself. I catch President Obama smile when he looks at his wife, like it’s the first time he’s seen her today, even though she’s been right by his side for the past 24 hours. That’s true love, I think to myself.
But what we don’t see is how they got there.
No one really talks about the years of stress they endured to get to this point. Remember, this isn’t a newlywed couple up there on the national stage. They’ve been together for more than 16 years. They know each other inside and out.
All we see now is the end result of years of hard work. All the airing of hurt feelings, the silent treatments, the shouting matches, the exasperation of trying to communicate when you really just want to be left alone – we missed all that. We’re late to the party.
One of the most inspiring chapters in President Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, was the last chapter where we talked about his family life and the struggles in his marriage. How the burden of parenthood often fell on Michelle; how his ambition often took him away from the family for extended periods of time and left Michelle feeling like a single mother; how she could hardly disguise her anger toward him at times and would turn her cheek away when he leaned in for a kiss. It was inspiring because it goes to show that we all can turn a marriage around and make it the envy of a nation.
Whenever I get mad at my husband, who has held that title for all of 21 months, I have to remember that we’re still in the pre-game warm-ups part of marriage (to use a sports analogy). We haven’t even reached game time, let alone being on the same team with two minutes left in the game.
We don’t have our clutch game together yet, like Barack and Michelle do. But we will. It just takes years of practice to make it look so easy.
Tara Pringle Jefferson is a freelance writer from Ohio, where she lives with her husband and two kids. Visit her blog, TheYoungMommyLife.com, for daily musings about the issues young moms face.
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