"For ten years I couldn't stand it."
Michelle Obama reveals how her marriage to former President Barack Obama hasn't always been rosy, especially in her early days.
With the young daughters Sasha and Malia and the two young spouses busy building their respective careers.
"People think I'm bad for saying that for ten years I couldn't stand my husband. Can you guess when? When the girls were little", confesses the former First lady in an interview with Revolt TV for the launch of her latest book 'The Light We Carry'.
With the candor and frankness that distinguishes her, and which in the past has led her to talk about other thorny topics such as menopause, Michelle explains how often, too often, we don't talk about "how much work is necessary and how difficult it is"
The former First Lady then retraces those ten years of difficulty, when the daughters were little "terrorists" who put the marriage to the test.
Michelle and Barack met in 1989 and married in 1992. When Obama was elected president, Malia and Sasha were ten and seven years old.
From a very young age they were "terrorists" who, like all children, "always cried and didn't know how to communicate. They were irrational and always needed. But we loved them. So who to blame? One on the other", she adds. Michelle who, recounting the ups and downs of her marriage, however, remembers never losing respect and admiration for her husband.
"Throughout those 'difficult' ten years we were trying to make a career out of it, but we also had to worry about school and the organization of who did what. You want to know what? Marriage isn't always 50-50. There are times when where I'm 70 and he's 30, and others where he's 60 and I'm 40. But it's been for 10 out of 30 years of marriage. I get 10 bad years out of 30," Michelle admits.
The presidential couple celebrated 30 years of marriage in the last few months.
In October, Barack Obama indeed posted some photos with Michelle on Instagram, including one from the wedding.
Referring to his wife as 'Miche', the former president wrote: 'After 30 years I don't know why you are exactly the same and I am not. But I do know that I won the lottery that day, that I couldn't ask for a better partner.'