--- title: Michelle Obama Reflects on How Her Marriage Has Changed description: The former First Lady chatted about finding new time to spend with Barack now that their term in office has ended. canonical: https://time.com/5454309/michelle-obama-marriage/ copyright: © 2026 TIME USA, LLC. All Rights Reserved. terms: https://legal.time.com/terms-of-service/ license_contact: syndication@time.com author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-11-14T16:08:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-13T08:06:15.878Z og:title: Michelle Obama Reflects on How Her Marriage Has Changed og:description: “We are finding each other again." og:url: https://time.com/5454309/michelle-obama-marriage/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdece8c27300b1a1b/69893f14656a3f6c40bd5f9d/michelle-barack-obama.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Barack And Michelle Obama Attend Portrait Unveiling At Nat'l Portrait Gallery og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Michelle Obama Reflects on How Her Marriage Has Changed twitter:description: “We are finding each other again." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdece8c27300b1a1b/69893f14656a3f6c40bd5f9d/michelle-barack-obama.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Michelle Obama on Her Relationship With Barack Now: 'It's Just Us and Our Dreams' > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=ac4412dd-7842-4fce-babc-d5e72e8201f8&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Michelle Obama Begins Her Book Tour With a Talk With Oprah [Watch (HLS stream): Michelle Obama Begins Her Book Tour With a Talk With Oprah](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/n2o1hTAU.m3u8) (1:47)  _Published 2018-11-14. Michelle Obama began her 12-stop book tour Tuesday by sitting with Oprah Winfrey before an audience at the home arena of the Chicago Bulls._  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Nov 14, 2018 4:08 PM UTC Michelle Obama began her 12-stop book tour Tuesday by sitting with Oprah Winfrey before an audience at the home arena of the Chicago Bulls.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Nov 14, 2018 4:08 PM UTC Michelle and Barack Obama are going through something that many couples do after raising kids: returning to their marriage as empty-nesters. (That is, nearly empty-nesters; their younger daughter, Sasha, is still 17, while [Malia](http://time.com/5410025/malia-obama-music-video/) is 20.) In an [interview with PEOPLE](https://people.com/politics/michelle-obama-barack-marriage-rediscovering-romance-after-white-house/), the former First Lady and new author of [memoir _Becoming_](http://time.com/5454046/michelle-obama-becoming-book-tour-oprah/) opened up about how her relationship with Barack has evolved, now that they’ve left the White House and have time to themselves. “We are finding each other again,” she said. “We have dinners alone and chunks of time where it’s just us — what we were when we started this thing: no kids, no publicity, no nothing. Just us and our dreams.” They’ve even taken the time to go on getaways as just the two of them, something that was rare indeed during Barack’s eight years in office. Recently, they headed out to California’s Palm Springs for some relaxation. “We swam, we sat, and he wrote because he’s still writing his book,” Michelle said of their vacation together. The Obamas have [shared a storied romance](http://time.com/barack-michelle-obama-love-story-photos/) and have become marriage touchstones for many. But Michelle has been sure to also discuss how they got through rough patches when needed with [couples counseling](http://time.com/5450376/michelle-obama-marriage-counseling/). “Because we’re role models, it’s important for us to be honest and say, if you’re in a marriage and there are times you want to leave, that’s normal — because I felt that way,” she said. Looks like they’re not going anywhere now. ## Transcript From the South side of Chicago, welcome Michelle Obama. [ MUSIC ] From the first page of this book until the last, you did it. You brought it, you opened yourself up, you allowed us to see in And let us experience the fullness of you in a way that I don't think anybody has ever done before, particularly who's been in the White House. One of the first things we did because we were trying to figure out how do you make this normal for children. Because Malia and Sasha were. Seven in ten. Thank you for that. [ LAUGH ] You know I want to hear the end of that. She's like, mom didn't even know how old we were. [ LAUGH ] They were young and we were figuring how do we keep them grounded? And the first thing we though is like, they cannot When we're having pancakes in the morning it's just crazy to have a man with the tuxedo coming. When you got some little girls at a sleepover and you bringing in some water so we cancelled the tuxedos. It's like yo take those tuxedos off wear some polo shirts and some slacks Unless we did something formal, we just sort of loosened it up a bit. And people ask do I miss the White House and it's like, no I don't miss the house because we took what was important in that house with us and it is with us, it's family, it's values. Wow. The friendship. so the house is beautiful, and it's historic, and it was an honor to live there, but the people in it makes it what it is. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5454309/michelle-obama-marriage/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5454309/michelle-obama-marriage/"},"headline":"Michelle Obama on Her Relationship With Barack Now: 'It's Just Us and Our Dreams'","datePublished":"2018-11-14T16:08:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-13T08:06:15.878Z","description":"“We are finding each other again.\"","url":"https://time.com/5454309/michelle-obama-marriage/","keywords":["Newsfeed","politics","Michelle Obama"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdece8c27300b1a1b/69893f14656a3f6c40bd5f9d/michelle-barack-obama.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdece8c27300b1a1b/69893f14656a3f6c40bd5f9d/michelle-barack-obama.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Barack And Michelle Obama Attend Portrait Unveiling At Nat'l Portrait Gallery","caption":"Barack And Michelle Obama Attend Portrait Unveiling At Nat'l Portrait Gallery","creditText":"Mark Wilson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5454309/michelle-obama-marriage/","name":"Michelle Obama on Her Relationship With Barack Now: 'It's Just Us and Our Dreams'"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Michelle Obama Begins Her Book Tour With a Talk With Oprah","description":"Michelle Obama began her 12-stop book tour Tuesday by sitting with Oprah Winfrey before an audience at the home arena of the Chicago Bulls.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/n2o1hTAU/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-11-14T08:42:06.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/n2o1hTAU.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5454309/michelle-obama-marriage/","duration":"PT1M47S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5454309/michelle-obama-marriage/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```