Barack Obama is spending more time with their wife Michelle Obama to make up for all the lost time, the former US President has revealed. During a conversation with Steven Tepper, the president of Hamilton College, the 63-year-old acknowledged that his two terms in the White House affected his relationship with Michelle.

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

This wasn’t the first time the couple spoke publicly about their married life and the challenges they faced when Mr Obama served as the US President.

Mr Obama, who has been married for 33 years now, earlier said that his relationship with his wife had improved after his time out of the White House.

In an interview with CBS Mornings in 2023, he said, “Let me just say this: It sure helps to be out of the White House and to have a little more time with her.”

Earlier, Ms Obama, referring to her husband’s presidential duties, said there was a decade in their relationship when she couldn’t stand her husband.

“People think I’m being catty by saying this — it’s like, there were 10 years where I couldn’t stand my husband. And guess when it happened? When those kids were little,” she told Revolt TV.

In 2018, Ms Obama also revealed the couple once went to a marriage counsellor to work on their relationship. She said that there were times she wished things were different. “But I don’t think I ever thought, ‘I’m just checking out of this,'” she added.

Barack Obama and Michelle Obama got married in 1992. They met at a law company where they both worked in the late 1980s. They are parents to two daughters – Sasha and Malia.