They Do: Talking Marriage with Conan O’Brien

Speaker 1 Barack knows the story. When we were engaged, I got mad at him about something,

Speaker 1 and I took my engagement ring off and I said, forget this, who needs this? And I threw the ring. We were in my car.

Speaker 1 I wasn't really throwing it out. I threw it where I would know it would go.

Speaker 1 I didn't mean it. I wasn't like, this is it.
I just, it was, it was a fact.

Speaker 2 You threw it, you threw it strategically into a cup in the back seat where you knew you could get it back.

Speaker 1 Exactly right. It's like,

Speaker 1 hello, everyone. I am Michelle Obama, and this is the Michelle Obama podcast.

Speaker 1 On this episode, we're going to be talking about a beautiful and challenging and one-of-a-kind relationship, marriage. My guest is the one and only Conan O'Brien.

Speaker 1 And as you probably know, he has his own TV show aptly named Conan. And he also has a wonderful podcast of his own called Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

Speaker 1 While you run into a lot of different people when you're first lady, you don't run into a lot of people like Conan.

Speaker 1 Obviously, he's very funny, but when you get to know Conan and spend a little time with him, you get to also see his warmth and his charm. He is incredibly down-to-earth and unpretentious.

Speaker 1 And that's why I wanted to talk with him about a relationship that demands honesty, authenticity, and being your full self. And that relationship is marriage.

Speaker 1 When you've got to share your life, your whole life with another human being, it's always good to be able to laugh at some stuff once you're married. And Conan and I do a lot of that.

Speaker 1 Conan.

Speaker 1 Hey, how are you? Hey, good. How are you?

Speaker 2 I'm doing great. I'm letting my hair grow.

Speaker 1 It's very cute.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 1 You've got a lot of bang action. Yeah, I do.

Speaker 2 I do. It's going to get curly soon.
And

Speaker 1 that'll be good. Yeah.
Or do you blow it out? Is that a blowout that you got going on there?

Speaker 1 I have a whole team.

Speaker 1 Did you always know that you wanted to get married? Because, you know, not only is there misinformation, but I know from our generation, our parents just didn't talk about their marriage.

Speaker 1 It was just sort of no one. It was like they just woke up and you didn't think about your parents or your grandparents in the context of their marriage.
It just was. Yes.

Speaker 1 There's no advice. There's no training for it.
Yet it's one of the hardest things you'll ever do.

Speaker 2 You know, it's amazing you brought up the generation thing because I think that is key. There is a generational gap.
I grew up very Irish Catholic in a very religious household.

Speaker 2 Nothing about this was ever discussed. And I remember when I was about 15, up to that point, the only information I had was from my friend Jake Fleischer,

Speaker 2 who explained it to me in the driveway and explained it to me in a very confusing way, which made no sense. And my parents never, ever, ever talked about sex in any way.
It didn't exist.

Speaker 2 The six of us, we just showed up.

Speaker 1 Showed up.

Speaker 2 Don't talk about it. There's no talking about emotions.
There's no talking about feelings. No, you don't talk about anything.
So it's kind of a miracle.

Speaker 2 I think it is, I hope, somewhat easier for young people today.

Speaker 1 I mean, I know for me and for a lot of women, we're socialized as young girls to think about, and I don't think it's thinking about marriage. I think it's thinking about the wedding.

Speaker 1 You envision the dress, the music, the storybook of marriage. But I always knew that I was going to be married.
I always knew that that's something that I wanted.

Speaker 1 And I came to learn as I grew up that not everybody came with that perspective. When Barack and I started dating, we went back and forth about the importance or the value or the necessity of marriage.

Speaker 1 And some of that probably came from how he was raised, the fact that, you know, his grandparents sort of had always stayed married, but had a rocky marriage. His mom was divorced.

Speaker 1 You know, he had a different view, whereas I came from, as he called it, the black leave-it-to-beaver scenario.

Speaker 2 Are they ever going to make that show, by the way?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 We're working on it. Good, good.
But he always joked, it's like, you guys have this sort of perfect, the mom and the dad.

Speaker 1 So he had a different view about marriage. And I never knew whether that was because of how he was raised, was that because of his gender?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's interesting because I can sum up the difference between how it's built up for women and how it's built up for men in one story, which is when I,

Speaker 2 when my wife and I got engaged, we went to a jeweler to start looking at her wedding ring.

Speaker 2 And we talked to this nice woman in Manhattan for about two hours about her ring and what her wedding band could look like and how it could match the engagement ring I had got her and how it would.

Speaker 2 And I swear it was two hours of talking about this ring. Then at the very end of the conversation, I said to the woman, I said, so I'm supposed to get a ring too, right? What about my ring?

Speaker 2 And she went, oh yeah, that.

Speaker 2 She reached behind, and this is a very high-end place in Manhattan. She reached behind her desk and took out a coffee can and turned it over.

Speaker 2 And 45 or 50 rings that all look kind of the same just went clattering out, and they looked like pieces of a washing machine. Like, and she was like, just take one of those.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 screw you, Bob.

Speaker 2 This is what, you know, it's not about you, it's about her.

Speaker 1 Right. And it's like, why are you even here? Yeah, why are you here?

Speaker 1 Just go. Sit in the corner.
Didn't we give you some champagne? You know, drink up. Just shush.

Speaker 2 I think for men, and this is me, I can't speak for all men, but my sense is that we have to come to it a little later. You know, I've always thought

Speaker 2 my wife, Liza, is the perfect person for me, but I also had to meet her at the perfect time. I was ready for the moment.
And when I was ready for the moment, I was open to it. I was open to it.

Speaker 2 I was open to it, and I was ready to meet her.

Speaker 1 And then the almighty staged gave her the stage direction to like walk through the scene and we're it's it's everything's right the same is true for me and i i i think a man's inclination to wait and to kind of go out there and search and get himself ready i think is a good instinct that more young women should think about because who you you have to know who you are to know who you're looking for.

Speaker 1 And I always thought, you know, if we if we approached a marriage and family like we approached particularly men like you would, you know, picking your basketball team,

Speaker 1 we'd have better marriages because if you're looking at a team, the people you want to win with, then number one, you want everybody on your team to be strong, right?

Speaker 1 You don't want any weak links. You don't want somebody that you can dominate.
You don't want somebody who's kind of a loser, right?

Speaker 1 And also, if you're on a team, you've got to be able to do everything, especially in basketball. It's like you would never pick somebody that says, I only dribble.

Speaker 1 I don't shoot. I don't defend.
I just dribble. You know, if we looked at marriage as a real team, then you want LeBron.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 You don't want the guy third row on the bench who didn't make the team.

Speaker 1 But we often don't think about that.

Speaker 2 Now you've got me thinking about marrying LeBron. And

Speaker 2 this is taking a turn.

Speaker 1 What you're supposed to say is, I have married LeBron. Yes.
My version of LeBron.

Speaker 2 Well, my wife, Liza, is LeBron James.

Speaker 1 She is the LeBron James in your life.

Speaker 1 That's the equivalent.

Speaker 1 So how did you guys meet? What was your meeting love story?

Speaker 2 Part of my job is to go out and shoot remote pieces. And so way back in late 1999, I had to shoot a remote at a top top advertising agency.

Speaker 2 And I'm just supposed to go into this room and be a wise guy.

Speaker 1 Well, that's unusual. Yeah, exactly.
And I walk into this room.

Speaker 2 And I'm bringing this up because people can Google Conan meets his wife, Conan meets Liza, because cameras are rolling. And I walk into this room of 11 people.

Speaker 2 So we're sitting here with the creative team for FCB. And everyone here is in black, which is, I guess, a New York advertising thing.
I immediately start talking to her. You two are definitely.

Speaker 2 And then I'm not even trying to be funny. I'm just saying, wait, so, so where'd you go to school? Uh-huh.
Oh, that's interesting. And I'm not even trying to be funny.

Speaker 2 I'm just trying to find out more about this woman. And my producers are listening in the next room and they're watching this.
And they're like, what the F is, what is he doing?

Speaker 2 This is, what is it? And then I left the room after this 20-minute conversation with only her.

Speaker 2 And I said, well, I think that went pretty well. And they're like, we got nothing we can use.

Speaker 2 And then I, and then I said um we should probably get everybody's like name and number and my my head writer mike sweeney said it's that it's that blonde woman isn't it and i went no no no no no and he's and he said why would we need their information and i went for editing and they're like editing what are you talking about so then We were breaking down the equipment and she walks out and we start talking some more.

Speaker 2 And then we end up talking in the lobby.

Speaker 2 And she said everything a woman is not supposed to say, leading off with, Yeah, I saw my gynecologist recently, and my gynecologist said, I need to start having children within the next two to three years if I really want them to be healthy.

Speaker 2 And me, rather than being panicked, I'm thinking, Yes, you should have children.

Speaker 2 Your children should be my children.

Speaker 1 You said something that rang true for me about Liza, and it's like she wasn't a game player.

Speaker 1 And I found that to be one of the things that stood out for me with Barack as well. Once we started talking and became friends, he was very clear.
Just like you, it's like, I want to date you.

Speaker 1 At least in my experience up until then, men would be coy. They would, you know, sort of look around the room.
It was all so complicated and it felt a little immature.

Speaker 1 What struck me about Barack was his lack of pretense. I mean,

Speaker 1 he was somebody who knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to say it.

Speaker 1 And I thought, well, if he's that in tune with his emotions that he can say out loud to somebody that doesn't know, he didn't know whether I liked him back.

Speaker 1 He was like, look, let me tell you, this is what I think about you. I think you're special.
I think you're different. And I would like to take you out.

Speaker 1 And that was rare, and it was attractive.

Speaker 2 I think one of the things that you hit on,

Speaker 2 I never know how to refer to your husband. So I just, but Barack.
Well, I can't. What's his name? What's his name? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 I feel like I can't say Barack, but

Speaker 2 it just feels weird to me. But

Speaker 2 when you met that guy,

Speaker 2 you're in a situation where, yes, initially it's going to be really nice. Let's walk, let's get an ice cream, let's go to this really nice restaurant in Chicago.

Speaker 2 And so everything is, who doesn't have a good time when they go to a nice restaurant? Who doesn't have a good time when they've had two glasses of wine? For me, six to eight.

Speaker 2 I have a tolerance. But anyway, you know, that's all the easy stuff.
You know, when you think about it, it's the same thing with the wedding. It's one day.

Speaker 2 It's all about you.

Speaker 2 There's a band. Everyone's giving you microwave ovens and you're thinking, this is great.
It's one day.

Speaker 2 None of that tells you anything.

Speaker 1 This whole notion of love at first sight. I believe in infatuation at first sight.
I believe in attraction at first sight.

Speaker 1 But marriage is intended to be long. It's full of ups and downs and highs and lows.
This is the person you're going through life with.

Speaker 1 So it's going to take you a minute, you know, to see this person in an array of situations.

Speaker 1 To see yourself with this person in an array of situations. It's like

Speaker 1 you want to see them when they're down. You want to see them when they're angry.
You want to see how they treat their mother. And it takes time to get to know that about somebody.

Speaker 1 People aren't perfect. Marriage is hard.
It's a a struggle for everyone. But the question you have to ask is, do you want to spend this life with somebody? Do you want to build something with someone?

Speaker 1 And there's no magic way to make that happen, except getting the basics of finding somebody, being honest about wanting to be with them, to date them seriously, to to plan on making a commitment to date them, seeing where it goes and then making it happen.

Speaker 1 And there's work and practice that goes into, I'm going to get off the apps and I'm going to actually ask this girl out and I'm going to take her out for a few months.

Speaker 1 I'm going to invest in this other person.

Speaker 1 And then I'm going to see where that goes. And if it doesn't go anywhere, then okay, we'll break up because that's what dating is.

Speaker 1 You can't tender your way into a long-term relationship.

Speaker 2 You know, they've done,

Speaker 2 I think they've done studies.

Speaker 2 The chemical that gets released in your brain when you're swiping left or swiping right on dating apps is the same chemical that gets released when you're pulling the lever of a slot machine in Las Vegas.

Speaker 2 You know, everyone's been to Vegas or walked through a Vegas showroom and seen all those people just sitting there pulling the slot machine handle over and over and over again.

Speaker 2 And the thing I always notice about them is their expression is joyless. It's these old ladies and they've got a giant bucket of coins and tokens, whatever.

Speaker 1 That's my mom. Okay, well,

Speaker 1 that's what this really is.

Speaker 2 It's an intervention. It's an intervention

Speaker 2 for your mom. Marion, get in here.

Speaker 2 I've talked to your mom, and I tried to bring this up, and

Speaker 2 I was escorted away by your security.

Speaker 1 You did this whole podcast. Yeah, this whole podcast.

Speaker 1 Just to get to Marion.

Speaker 2 Marion, you've got a problem, Marion.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 we got to straighten this out.

Speaker 2 But no, seriously, it's like it becomes joyless at a certain point. And for me, you know, when I met Liza, I was 36.

Speaker 2 And I had been through

Speaker 2 a bunch of relationships. I had lived in 75 different apartments.
I had lived in New York and then L.A. and then New York again and then L.A.
and I lived in Chicago briefly. And I just bounced around.

Speaker 2 I went wherever I thought my career needed me to go. And

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 had been to therapy because I had been really unhappy and I had been through a lot. So by the time

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 met my wife,

Speaker 2 I kind of had got to the point where

Speaker 2 it dawned on me marrying someone,

Speaker 2 if it's the right person, isn't surrendering something. It's actually a chance to build something.
It took a long time, but I finally saw, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 36, 37 years for you, Conan. Yeah.
Yeah, it took a long time.

Speaker 1 No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 1 You didn't know I was that old.

Speaker 1 I'm like, whoa. I'm 88 years old.

Speaker 2 I've just had a lot of work done.

Speaker 2 But no,

Speaker 2 I got to the point where I realized that I could do

Speaker 2 more teamed up with this person than I could ever do alone. And that was exciting to me.
And I cannot conceive of having that notion when I was 25. It took me, I've always been a late bloomer.

Speaker 2 It took me a while to get there, there, but I'm really glad I didn't try it before I was ready.

Speaker 1 Even once we do that, right? And you and I did it, having the right partner, at least what I found was wonderful. Those beginning years were heavenly because we were two independent people.

Speaker 1 You know, I had my job and career. He had his job and career.
He'd travel, do his thing. Then we'd come together and date nights and, you know, wonderful weekends together.

Speaker 1 Travel wasn't an issue because it was actually nice for him to be away, for us to be away and then come back together. But then for me,

Speaker 1 all that seemed to change sort of the first, the first tough years came

Speaker 1 with kids. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, and because I had infertility issues, I was ready. I wanted kids.
I worked hard for them. We both did.
We were mature.

Speaker 1 We had, I think we'd been married for four or five years, so we had a wonderful amount of time together, which was helpful.

Speaker 1 But even with all of that,

Speaker 1 when these little people arrive and the whole process of pregnancy, conception, delivery, and then they're there, that can suck the life out of all of that hard work and all that wisdom because it's hard to get ready for the wonderful joyfulness that is having your children.

Speaker 1 Yes. Because they are amazing and I would not trade them in, but whew,

Speaker 1 they can mess up a marriage.

Speaker 2 I have this analogy for this, which is I read years ago that I was reading an article and it said that the BMW car company has the best standards because what they do is they have this they have this giant claw that takes like one out of 20 BMWs or 30 or 50 or 100, it comes down and it picks it up off the line

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 it shakes the BMW

Speaker 2 really hard for two minutes.

Speaker 2 And if there's a flaw in the BMW somewhere, like a screw that's a little loose or a ball bearing that's not quite there, or there's a little problem with the axle, it'll come flying off.

Speaker 2 And I read that article and I said, this

Speaker 2 is what having a child is. What a child does, it's a giant claw that comes down and it picks up your marriage and it shakes it really hard for two minutes.
And it shakes it as hard as you can imagine.

Speaker 2 And guess what? If there is a problem,

Speaker 2 if there is a loose screw,

Speaker 2 if there is a little bit of a thing, it is going to come flying out. I love that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But it's absolutely true that I thought

Speaker 2 that women had babies and it was miraculous and they just knew what to do. And my wife gave me the look that I was sort of looking at her and my wife looked at me like, what do we do with this?

Speaker 2 What do we do now? And I thought,

Speaker 1 I thought,

Speaker 2 I thought you would just magically know and I would go back to work and then I'd come home and there'd be like all these stews cooking and a fire in the fireplace and you'd hand me a martini and the the baby would be have a little pink bow around it no it was uh it was

Speaker 2 everything it was my my wife went through a period of depression she had a lot of anxiety about uh the child she had a lot of trouble breastfeeding initially and my wife is the most common sense person in the world and she was having a lot of trouble breastfeeding and one day when I was out of the house

Speaker 2 She heard through a friend, oh, these women are really great. You've got to use these women.
They know what to

Speaker 2 They're kind of old school. It turned out that they were part of like some witch coven.

Speaker 2 They came over, and they're witches like in the modern sense, but not in a negative way. I mean, they're not wearing black hats and running around on brooms.
They look sort of

Speaker 2 like hippies. And I came home to my apartment.

Speaker 1 As long as they are calling themselves witches.

Speaker 2 Okay, I'm pretty sure they were calling themselves witches. And this is all on me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure.

Speaker 2 But I came home and these women were surrounding my wife, and they had put cabbage leaves on her breasts. So my wife looked like, she looked like a salad bar.

Speaker 2 And so my wife is covered in cabbage leaves. She's miserable.
And I thought, what is going? How did this happen? Why is it this hard?

Speaker 2 Eventually, we went to a dermatologist who said, yes, put this, use this salve.

Speaker 1 Hot heating pad.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then no problem off to the races.
But the point is, she was panicked. I was panicked because she was panicked.

Speaker 1 Well, this is just an example of how disruptive these cute little creatures are. But the division of labor in a marriage also becomes real clear when a child comes.

Speaker 1 Because if your wife is breastfeeding, if she has a career,

Speaker 1 She's going to have to make a different set of sacrifices than you do.

Speaker 1 Just the act of giving birth creates an inequality in opportunities, you know, not to complain about it, but the truth is, especially if you, if, and if you've had a troubled pregnancy, we're not even talking about if you had a C-section or if you were put in the, if you were hospitalized or if you were, you know, and you're trying to keep your career going and you're trying to, you know, maintain your autonomy and physically, the whole structure means that, you know, he's got sort of a leg up because he didn't have to do any of this.

Speaker 1 Yep. You know, that, at least in my marriage, that was the first time I felt the sting of gender roles.
And I had to be there and I had to go and it was my body.

Speaker 1 And my husband was still sort of bopping around, living his life. There you start to sort of the resentment starts to build up, or it started to.
It's like, well, what happened to the unit?

Speaker 1 What happened to my best friend? What happened to my buddy who's at the gym? It's like, how the hell are you at the gym? You know, dude, I'm, I, you know, I've got cabbage on my breast. And, you know,

Speaker 1 I find that a lot of young couples that we know around this early childhood stage when they're kind of dealing with these stresses and dealing with the first times that they have to share roles, really, truly share roles.

Speaker 1 You know, when kids are babies, when they're young, it's not the time to start grading your marriage paper, right? You know, because these are unique times.

Speaker 1 But a lot of times, young couples they hit these hard periods and because they're short-tempered or they're tired, the sex life is gone, the romance is out of the picture,

Speaker 1 they give up because nobody told them that this time is hard.

Speaker 1 You've got to know that there are going to be long periods of time when you can't stand each other. You know, and I say it, you know, I said it, you know, on the book tour as a joke.

Speaker 1 There were times that I wanted to push Barack out of the window, right? And I say that because it's like, you got to know the feelings will be intense, but that doesn't mean you quit.

Speaker 1 And these periods can last a long time. Yeah.
They can

Speaker 1 last years, but we don't talk about that. So young couples, they face these challenges and they're ready to give up because they think they're broken.

Speaker 1 And I just want to say, look, if that breaks a marriage, then Barack and I have been broken off and on throughout our marriage, but we have a very strong marriage.

Speaker 1 And if I had given up on it, if I had walked away from it in those tough times, then I would have missed all the beauty that was there as well.

Speaker 2 I thought it was great that you brought this up in your book. You talked very openly about marriage counseling.
And my wife and I at one point decided we should go talk to someone together.

Speaker 2 Not because we were thinking at all about going our separate ways, not because anything was in trouble, but because I found that the biggest, and you've brought the word up before, the biggest cancer to me on any relationship is resentment.

Speaker 2 What Irish Catholics do is that if I'm mad at you about something, I don't bring it up, but I complain to everyone but you about it.

Speaker 2 And it's a very, it's human, but I think the Irish Catholics are very good at it is we polish resentments to,

Speaker 2 they become jewels. And I early on decided I don't want to resent my wife, and I don't want her to resent me.

Speaker 2 So we have this pact almost that if I'm, I can make a lot of jokes, sort of passive-aggressive jokes, and she's really good at saying, okay, you've made that joke three times now. Are you really?

Speaker 2 You really don't like the way I make the broccoli? And then I'll, you know, let's have it out. And we have it out.
And we've had fights, and we've had fights where we're both emotional.

Speaker 2 And then afterwards, when the storm clears, we're better than we were before. So I'm on a mission in my marriage to fight resentment.

Speaker 1 That goes back to why it's important to have a whole person,

Speaker 1 you know, to have two whole people in the marriage, right?

Speaker 1 Because in order to have that out, to have that communication, both people have to have a voice and they have to know themselves well enough. A lot of women aren't taught that.

Speaker 1 In fact, we're taught the opposite when it comes to our marriage, our relationships. Don't tell them the truth.
Don't let them see you get angry. Don't sound like a nag, you know, and all of

Speaker 1 those are just code words for keep it in, right?

Speaker 2 Well, you were also, you were in a position,

Speaker 2 you have this very real, healthy, but real relationship with your husband. And then you had that put under the biggest microscope in the world.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it goes back to the BMW example with children. You know, a presidency is like taking that little shaking period and doubling the intensity of the shake

Speaker 1 and the time of the shake. It's the same thing.
I mean, if you go into a presidency or a public life and your marriage isn't solid, right?

Speaker 1 That experience will shake it and anything loose will fly off.

Speaker 1 And the presidency is, you know, you magnify that because it's as the first lady, I am married to the commander-in-chief. Okay.
All right. Now that right there is just like, okay, who says

Speaker 1 this is a marriage? What is this title? You know, commander-in-chief.

Speaker 1 Everybody's saluting this guy. You know,

Speaker 1 what is it like when your partner is the most powerful man? in the house, in the world, you know, and everyone salutes him.

Speaker 1 And the entire presidency, rightfully so, is set up to protect and make the life easy for the president, which means that in a marriage of equals, the other partner is second because the entire institution says, no, you're first lady, which means you're second person

Speaker 1 under all the rules of life. The commander-in-chief takes precedent.
So it's the ultimate test. And it's unique, but the truth is, is in our world, men and women still aren't equal.

Speaker 1 Women still get paid 77 cents on the dollar compared to a man. That can put a stress on a marriage.

Speaker 2 I've had the experience of doing a week of shows at the Chicago Theater, and I walk out every night, and there's lines around the block, and people are screaming, and the audience are doing a tour, and you get this kind of rock star reception,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 then walking into a a room with my wife, and she's not having any of it. And

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 find it to be life-saving. I find it to actually be the fact that your husband has this relationship with you and with your daughters where you guys are not saluting him.

Speaker 2 You guys are not, you know, none of that's happening. In fact, the opposite is happening.
Yeah, you're trying to push him out a window occasionally.

Speaker 1 He is the butt of every joke at the table. Yeah,

Speaker 2 as am I.

Speaker 1 Poor guy.

Speaker 2 As am I. And so, you know, my point is that I have found that

Speaker 2 one of the things that you get from a marriage that's magical is gravity.

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 gravity is this incredible gift to us. Yeah, it causes our back to ache.
Yes, it causes all these problems. But gravity is the gift.
You want gravity.

Speaker 2 And I get gravity from my wife and I get gravity from my kids because I could go out in front of an audience and have an amazing, transcendent experience where people are bowing to me and saying that was holy.

Speaker 2 Not that this has ever happened, but like, wow, a great experience. And then I can walk into this room and these people are my gravity.
They're saying, no, we know you.

Speaker 2 We've seen you be really unfunny at the breakfast table.

Speaker 3 More on the Michelle Obama podcast after the break.

Speaker 1 We talked about how important it is to know enough about yourself to have a voice to be able to communicate and make sure that resentments aren't building up. But sometimes they do.
Really?

Speaker 1 In a marriage.

Speaker 2 Not my marriage. Not one argument.

Speaker 1 Not one.

Speaker 1 Ever. This is where we're going to, you know, I've already written about

Speaker 1 our lawyerly way of arguing, you know, because we each, you know, we know how to win an argument. And sometimes

Speaker 1 we can feel ourselves just lawyering ourselves to death.

Speaker 1 And we both like to win.

Speaker 1 I know that we've had to learn how to argue differently because

Speaker 1 I hit fast and hard and then I forget. It's like, oh, did that cut you deeply? Ah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I remember Barack knows the story when we were engaged. I got mad at him about something

Speaker 1 and I took my engagement ring off and I said, forget this. Who needs this? And I threw the ring.
We were in my car. I wasn't really throwing it out.
I threw it where I would know it would go

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 I didn't mean it. I wasn't like, this is it.
I just, it was, it was a,

Speaker 2 you threw it strategically into a car in the back seat where you knew you were going to be.

Speaker 1 Exactly right. It's like

Speaker 1 you know, it was on the floor. I knew where it was going.
But, you know, whenever he gets the chance to relive that as an example of, you know, how

Speaker 1 fast and quickly I can go there,

Speaker 1 he does. So he remembers it and I don't.
Right. So I had to learn that

Speaker 1 he feels things much more

Speaker 1 deeply

Speaker 1 for over a longer period of time. He remembers the exact words used, the context that they were in.
And I'm like, wow, was I really? I don't even remember being mad.

Speaker 1 So I had to learn how not to go there.

Speaker 1 You know, you have to learn how to communicate in a way that the other person is actually going to hear it, not just in a way that's going to ease you of your feelings.

Speaker 1 How have you guys figured this out?

Speaker 2 Well, you know, I think I grew up with this idea that if something is bothering you or if someone's offended you you're supposed to martyr yourself you're supposed to literally my mother used to say i mean she would tell me about working at this prestigious law firm in the early 1960s the men all got to go into the lunchroom

Speaker 2 and she they set up a little card table for her outside because a woman couldn't go into the

Speaker 2 lunchroom.

Speaker 2 I mean, it would never even happen today. But at the time, I said to my mom, mom, were you angry? And she said, well, no, I just offered it up.
And I said, offered it up. You know, what is offered?

Speaker 2 And she, when we were growing up, would say, I just offer it up to the suffering souls in purgatory, which means if something happens to you,

Speaker 2 you don't process it. You just hand it over to a higher power and you keep marching.
And I thought, that just doesn't work. It doesn't work.
Like if my wife, if I do something and it pisses off Liza,

Speaker 2 if I told her, look, just offer it up to the suffering souls in purgatory and go about your way and let's hear no more of it,

Speaker 2 I would be, she would stab me with whatever's in the room. It wouldn't even have to be sharp.
She could stab me with a one.

Speaker 1 I'll do this for offering

Speaker 1 right in the jugular. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 I'll offer this up.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's the same thing I have found. It doesn't work for her because it also doesn't work for me.
And so arguments are,

Speaker 2 it took me a long time to realize that if someone's screaming at me, it's because they're scared. That a lot of times in life,

Speaker 2 when someone is really losing their temper at you, it's because they're terrified. And so you need to address the fear that they have.

Speaker 1 What you describe in your approach in your marriage, you know, just speaks to why why we have to learn to cultivate empathy in people, in our children, because you need it to be successful in life, in relationships.

Speaker 1 Because what you are talking about is essentially saying, looking at the person you love in the eye and going, I have to understand your context so I can understand where that frustration, where that anger, where that joy is coming from, and then speak to that.

Speaker 2 You know, one of the things that makes me think about is that when you're in a marriage, you do not have the luxury of making the person an other.

Speaker 2 You just don't have that luxury because you have to make this work.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's the nuclear option of I'm out, let's get a lawyer. And a lot of people do that.
And a lot of people do that.

Speaker 2 But for the most part, even people that have gone through a divorce have to still see that other person as a person.

Speaker 2 And we've all had really good friends that have done really stupid things and we've stuck with them

Speaker 2 because they're our friends and because it's a human being to us. Whereas if we were just hearing about them on MSNBC or Fox News, we could dismiss them if we wanted to.

Speaker 2 And I think it's just about being really close to someone. You don't have that luxury.
You don't have the luxury of you have to work it out.

Speaker 1 You just have to.

Speaker 1 One of the reasons why I'm having these conversations about the importance of relationship in defining ourselves is that the core of who we are is built up of all these pieces.

Speaker 1 Our relationship with ourself, our relationship with our family, our siblings, our spouses, our peers, our co-workers.

Speaker 1 All of that.

Speaker 1 contextualizes us and gives us substance, but we don't take time to explore that, to understand it, you know, to understand how it impacts us.

Speaker 1 As a comedian, your whole profession requires insight, right?

Speaker 1 You observe and understand and then interpret in a funny way what is going on in the world around us.

Speaker 1 And we just can't take that for granted. That work has to be done.

Speaker 1 I want to thank you, Conan, for

Speaker 1 your insights.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, pick and choose the ones you like and throw away the rest. But thank you.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 I had so much fun with Conan. Hopefully you did too.
For those of you who are married, maybe you heard something that rang true.

Speaker 1 And for those of you who aren't, I hope that conversation gave you a sense of what marriage might actually feel like or what you might want to be looking for in a partner.

Speaker 1 But no matter what, I hope this conversation gave you a chance to listen not to me and Conan, but to yourself to that little voice that tells you if there's something you want to work on or work through with yourself or with your partner those realizations open you up to journeys that aren't always easy but they are always always worth it so with that i just want to thank you for joining me conan and thank you all for joining me for this part of our journey together i will talk to you again very soon take Take care.

Speaker 3 The Michelle Obama podcast is a Spotify original presented and produced by Higher Ground Audio in collaboration with Dustlight Productions.

Speaker 3 From Higher Ground Audio, Dan Fearman, Anna Holmes, and Mook DeMohan are executive producers. Janae Maribel is our editorial assistant.
Adam Sachs is our consulting producer.

Speaker 3 From Dustlight Productions, Misha Youssef is the executive producer. Arwen Nix and Jonathan Jonathan Schifflett are the producers.
Additional production support from Mary Knopf.

Speaker 3 Jonathan Schifflett is also our engineer. Manika Wilhelm is the archival producer and transcriber.
Rachel Garcia is the Dustlight Editorial Assistant.

Speaker 3 Daniel Eck, Don Ostroff, and Courtney Holt are executive producers for Spotify.

Speaker 3 Special thanks to Mackenzie Smith, Joe Paulson, Christina Schockey, Melissa Winter, China Clayton, Alex May, Caroline Adler-Morales, and Maron Helimascal.

Speaker 3 And thanks to Clean Cut Studio, Search Party Music, Tyler Lectenberg, Dylan Rupert, Carolyn Lipke, Young Creative Agency, and Diara Nazarian.

Speaker 3 Our theme music is by Stevie Wonder, original music by Andy Claussen, and Telly Fresco. The song you heard at the beginning of this show is Love Me Right by Sister.

Speaker 3 Thanks for listening to the Michelle Obama podcast.