Michelle Obama reveals there were ‘times she wanted to push Barack out of the window’

Michelle Obama has confessed there were ‘times that I wanted to push Barack out of the window’ as she opened up about the presidential couple’s marriage. 

The former first lady, 56, told young couples that ‘if that breaks a marriage, then Barack and I have been broken off and on… but we have a very strong marriage.’ 

Speaking to Conan O’Brien on her Michelle Obama Podcast, she also warned that ‘you can’t Tinder your way into a long-term relationship’. 

The Obamas have been married since 1992 and Michelle has previously been named as the world’s most admired woman, but has long insisted she will not follow her husband into politics. 

Mrs Obama compared the choice of a husband or wife to selecting a basketball team – saying she had married ‘my version of LeBron’. 

‘If we looked at marriage as a real team, you want your teammate to be a winner. You want LeBron, you know,’ she said.  

She added: ‘There were times that I wanted to push Barack out of the window. And I say that because it’s like, you’ve got to know the feelings will be intense. 

‘But that doesn’t mean you quit. And these periods can last a long time. They can last years.’ 

Mrs Obama expanded on her thoughts in an Instagram post on Sunday, saying that marriage ‘takes a lot of work, a lot of honesty with ourselves and our partners’. 

‘That’s one thing I’ve learned. I’d love to hear some of the things you’ve learned about marriage and about yourself,’ she told her 42million followers. 

The Obamas will celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary on October 3, after Michelle marked last year’s occasion by saying the couple were ‘still feeling the magic that brought us together all those years ago’. 

‘Twenty-seven years ago, this guy promised me a life full of adventure. I’d say he’s delivered,’ she said. 

As president, Barack Obama spent the evening of his 20th anniversary debating Republican challenger Mitt Romney ahead of the 2012 election. 

‘There are a lot of points I want to make tonight, but the most important one is that 20 years ago I became the luckiest man on Earth because Michelle Obama agreed to marry me,’ he told the audience. 

‘And so I just want to wish, Sweetie, you happy anniversary and let you know that a year from now we will not be celebrating it in front of 40million people,’ he joked. 

Obama won the election to win a second term, before the couple left the White House and handed over to Donald Trump in January 2017. 

Since then, the Obamas have gone further than many former presidents and first ladies have done by making fierce criticisms of Trump’s presidency.  

Trump has undone or watered down some of Obama’s key initiatives such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate change accords. 

Both Obamas gave impassioned speeches at last month’s Democratic National Convention, urging voters to back Joe Biden in the November election. 

‘Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,’ Mrs Obama said. ‘He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head.’ 

Taking aim at Trump over the recent race protests, she said: ‘Stating the simple fact that a black life matters is still met with derision from the nation’s highest office.’  

Mrs Obama’s speech was her fourth to a Democratic convention, after she first introduced herself to the nation during her husband’s 2008 campaign. 

However, she has said that she had no desire to follow her husband into politics despite her popularity in the party.  

Mrs Obama has been voted the most admired woman in America in Gallup polls for the last two years running. 

She also won the title of the world’s most admired woman in a YouGov poll last year, displacing Angelina Jolie in the top spot.  

The couple’s daughters Malia and Sasha were only 10 and seven respectively when the family moved into the White House in 2009. 

They are now students, with Malia at Harvard and Sasha at the University of Michigan, although teaching was disrupted by the pandemic. 

Since leaving the White House, Michelle Obama has also published her memoir Becoming while the former president is working on his own book. 

More than 10million copies of Becoming have been sold worldwide since it was first published in November 2018.

M Obama then embarked on a rock-star-style tour of more than 30 cities in the US, Canada and Europe to promote the autobiography.