Barack Obama’s brutally honest admission about 33-year marriage

The former president has shared a rare insight into his marriage with wife Michelle – revealing his shortcomings in a very honest admission.

Barack Obama has made a shockingly honest revelation about the state of his marriage amid rumours he and wife Michelle are headed for divorce.

Speculation has plagued the Obamas for months – especially after the former president attended the late President Jimmy Carter’s funeral solo and then went to President Donald Trump’s inauguration alone.

But the 63-year-old has hinted that he’s been working on repairing their almost 33-year marriage while addressing Hamilton College students on Thursday.

The honest, and somewhat brutal admission, came after the university’s President, Steven Tepper, asked Obama what he’d been up to recently, to which he explained he’d mostly been working on the second half of his memoir.

Barack Obama recently made a shockingly honest admission about the state of his marriage to Michelle Obama. Fight For Progress/YouTube

“This is like 50 term papers. I mean, it just goes on forever,” he said, according to the Daily Beast.

“I’m hoping to get to the finish line on that.

“Beyond that, look, I was in a deep deficit with my wife. So I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things.”

The former president of the United States has previously suggested that his back-to-back terms in office from 2009 to 2017 took a toll on his relationship with the former first lady.

“Let me just say this: It sure helps to be out of the White House and to have a little more time with her,” he told CBS Mornings in May 2023, adding Michelle was “forgiving” of his shortcomings.

“I did not fully appreciate, I think — as engaged of a father as I was — the degree of stress and tension for her knowing that not just me and Michelle were under scrutiny and in this strange environment, but that we were raising our daughters in a kind of situation that just wasn’t normal.”

‘I was in a deep deficit with my wife. So I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole’. Picture: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP

Michelle, 61, has also been vocal about the challenges of their marriage on the past, stating that she “couldn’t stand” her husband for a solid decade when their daughters — Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23 — “were little”.

The former first lady candidly discussed the early years of the couple’s union in which she explained that she was doing the heavy lifting while the eventual president was often absent.

“People think I’m being catty saying this. It’s like, there were 10 years where I couldn’t stand my husband,” Michelle said while on the Revolt TV panel in December 2022.

“And for 10 years, while we’re trying to build our careers and, you know, worrying about school and who’s doing what and what, I was like, ‘Ugh, this isn’t even.’

“And guess what? Marriage isn’t 50/50 — ever. There’s sometimes I’m 70, he’s 30, but guess what? We’ve been married 30. I would take 10 bad years over 30. It’s just how you look at it.”

Unfounded rumours began after Obama attended a handful of political events by himself – including Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration. Picture: Kenny Holston/The New York Times / AFP

She also said that she talks openly about her partnership “because marriage is hard, and a lot of young people quit on marriage over things that are just a part of the commitment”.

The Obamas, who tied the knot in October 1992, have recently been plagued by unfounded divorce rumours that started in January after Barack attended a handful of political events by himself, including former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral and President Trump’s inauguration.

He dedicated a heartfelt message to his wife of almost 33-years on Valentine’s Day. Picture: Instagram

Speculation was further fuelled when an insider insisted that Michelle is simply “checked out” of DC life.

“They don’t pretend that they have this Camelot relationship. They’re not trying to present that they’re this magical couple,” the source, who once worked with the couple, told Page Six in January.

Obama appeared to take aim at the relationship allegations on Valentine’s Day, with a flirty social media post to his wife Michelle affirming she’s still the one after more than three decades together.

“Thirty-two years together and you still take my breath away,” the former president wrote in a post on X in February alongside a selfie of the two beaming together.

Originally published as Barack Obama’s brutally honest admission about 33-year marriage