Marriage on the Brink

After years of struggling to make their relationship work, Michelle and Barack Obama face their biggest crisis yet

For her husband’s 63rd birthday on Aug. 4, Michelle Obama posted what appeared to be an old shot of them pretending to push a massive boulder uphill — a metaphor for their marriage. “Here’s to weathering all of life’s storms and moving mountains together,” she wrote, calling Barack “the love of my life.”

But, as Michelle has admitted herself, their relationship is far from perfect. “They’ve been open about how they’ve gone through very rough periods,” a source says of the former first couple, who have managed to stay married for nearly 32 years thanks to a combination of couples therapy and an embrace of mutual independence. But lately, amid rumors that Barack “has gone Hollywood” and gotten too close to Jennifer Aniston, “they’ve grown further apart than ever. Michelle once said, ‘One of the keys to a successful marriage is separate bathrooms,’ but they’ve been known to sleep in separate bedrooms as well,” says the source. “It’s an open secret that their marriage is at the breaking point.”

TEMPESTUOUS UNION

They’ve always had issues. Michelle, who was Barack’s superior at the law firm where they met, “sacrificed a successful career so that she could support his political ambitions,” the source points out. Marriage, the former first lady has said, “is never 50-50 — somebody was always giving way more.”