How Michelle and Barack Obama are navigating ‘new phase’ of marriage as empty nesters

Michelle Obama and Barack Obama are in a “new phase” after becoming empty-nesters.

“Our kids are grown. They’re out,” the former first lady said about Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24, on Wednesday’s episode of her “IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson” podcast.

“They’re out. We’re looking at each other like, ‘Hey, I remember you.’ Now I’m not mad about anything. I don’t need you to do anything for me.”

“It’s a new phase,” Michelle, 62, admitted. “Which takes time. We’re in a new phase of life.”

The author noted that Barack, 64, needs to figure out who he is in this next chapter as well.

“I’m doing the same thing,” Michelle pointed out. “That’s a whole new assignment that you have to factor in. Now we’re doing this, and we’re back to just me and him. It takes time.”

Meanwhile, the attorney also said that some of the hard work she and Barack went through was “because of the kids.”

“Without them, a lot of the hard things don’t come up,” Michelle reiterated. “When those beautiful, lovely kids we all want show up with their own agendas and their own needs, it’s the first major joint project you have to do together.”

Despite being married for 33 years, the philanthropist and politician continues to put in the work, which she recognized not everyone does.

“Part of the reason why I talk about it being hard is not because I don’t love my husband and we have a wonderful relationship,” Michelle shared. “We’ve been married 30 plus years. Something works. If you don’t let people know about the tough times, I think they quit too soon.”

She also gave listeners a golden piece of advice about navigating their own relationships.

“That’s why I say things like you can go through ten bad years in a 30 year marriage and that’s still great odds,” Michelle said. “In any long relationship, there is going to be years, months, hours of time where things just don’t feel right. You don’t quit on it. You dig deeper. And if you don’t dig deeper, you miss all the stuff on the end.

“The level of muscle Barack and I have in our marriage is earned,” the mom of two added. “It’s earned over time and it’s only gotten better. That the point. It only gets better. We’ve done the work.”

In January, Michelle opened up about going to couples therapy with Barack.

“I believe in the practice of having those conversations with objective people who help you piece through that stuff, and it’s a constant, it’s constant work,” she said on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast.

She clarified that listeners shouldn’t be scared of therapy because “we are ever-growing, evolving [and] improving.”

Michelle also talked about understanding early in their marriage that they could not change each other.

“I’ve grown to know I don’t have control over him, just like he doesn’t have control over me,” she elaborated. “So let me do my work and let him do our work and together we come together as whole people.”

Michelle and Barack first crossed paths at a law firm in the late 1980s before tying the knot in 1992.

Last year, Barack and Michelle faced split rumors after the latter opted out of attending several public events, including former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral and President Trump’s inauguration in January 2025.

However, an insider told Page Six at the time that the podcast host “checked out” of DC after leaving the White House in January 2017.