Disclaimer: I apologize to any non-BO fans. However, I thought this topic might allow for very interesting discussions about marriage, everyday stress, and character. A nice change of pace from the recent slew of Reid-love :)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/magazine/01Obama-t.html
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What a fascinating article...thank you, Leen! Every bit of it was well worth reading, even though long. I had a really big chuckle that a friend compared Michelle to Bill (Clinton) and Barack to Hillary!!! However, no one seemed to suggest that Barack in any way (how shall I put this?) resembles a whipped puppy! Interesting dynamics with these two, and I'm sure I'll have additional thoughts.
ReplyDeleteScotty
It was fascinating to watch the election play out last year. The relationship between Barack and Michelle Obama played a significant role, especially when contrasted with the roles of marriages of most candidates in recent elections.
ReplyDeleteDuring the primaries, Republican image-makers cast the Obamas into bizarre roles. He was a Muslim, a terrorist or a Black Panther. She was an anti-American black activist. This ploy blew up in their faces. In the first debate with John McCain, millions of Americans heard Barack Obama speak for the first time. They were surprised that he didn't have a foreign accent. Later they discovered that Michelle didn't sound like an urban welfare mother. Most Americans realized that the Obamas were not the threat that they supposed to be.
A huge part of their appeal is tied to their marriage. By all accounts, their marriage is healthy and balanced and their children are happy. This is almost unheard of among prominent politicians in this country. Yet it surprises me that they would be the exceptions.
Both Barack and Michelle are very strong-willed people. How do they live with one another peacefully? I sense that they are both used to being right most of the time. What happens when they disagree? They are both diplomatic and they both know when to compromise. In a marriage those traits only carry a relationship so far. What do they have that carries them through all the conflict they've overcome?
Jim
Ah, the complicated balance of power that must be negotiated in a marriage.
ReplyDeleteWhen two strong-willed people live together, it makes for an interesting and sometimes tumultuous relationship. It takes work, practice and the acquisition of 'relationship wisdom' to find the right balance.
I speak from personal experience. I am married to an extremely intelligent (genius level IQ, actually), opinionated man. Nothing in my husband's life is grey. It is all black or white. He is the most principled man I've ever met and he is also the most honest and the most blunt. He is completely incapable of any kind of artifice or, some might even say, 'diplomacy'. What you see is what you get.
I am a strong woman. Had I been more submissive, I might have been swallowed up by my larger-that-life husband. But I have not allowed any part of myself to have been shadowed by him. Instead, we are equals in this marriage.
This equality has carried a big price tag. Our marriage, now coming on 25 years long, has been characterized by some pretty major power struggles. Over the years, we have learned much from this. We now live in relative peace.
What has ultimately made our marriage successful (so far: I am never one to take anything for granted. Life comes with no guarantees -- we must work for what we have or let it slowly slip away), is that we have learned to complement each others' strengths and weaknesses. I am far more innately diplomatic than he, almost bordering on hypocrisy at times, so careful am I with others' feelings. But living with him has taught me the value of speaking my mind, even when the answer may risk ruffling feathers. He, on the other hand, has learned that what he can sometimes say can hurt, even though he never meant it to. I have learned to stand up for myself in the bigger arena but not to 'sweat the small stuff'. I'm sure he has done the same.
My husband and I have very different characters and ways of going about things but we share essentially the same values. We have both also made some compromises in our marriage. Our marriage is far from perfect; it is certainly a far cry from those that Hollywood churns out as the presumable ideal. I could not, for example, say that my husband was my 'soul-mate'. Nor could I say that, after 25 years, we are as romantic as newly-weds.
What I can completely unashamedly say is that we have built a life together with love, common goals and a growing understanding of each other. While there are flaws that each of us doesn't like in the other, we are wise enough to know that this happens in every marriage and to sugar-coat it otherwise is simply self-delusion. We do have, however, a lot of qualities that the other respects and admires.
Most importantly, after 25 years, we can still talk, really meaningfully talk, to each other. We can have stimulating discussions, in the company of others or with just the two of us.
And we don't always agree, either.
I think the Obamas respect each other enough to know that they will not always agree; that they are separate individuals, yet bound together; that their differences are what ultimately make them a 'power couple', not only in others' eyes but for each other.
What makes a marriage stronger as the years go on is the accumulation of shared life experience, including conflict, as long as that experience results in the ultimate strengthening of the relationship and not in the breaking down of it.