Michelle Obama Reveals Why She Goes to Marriage Counseling with Barack Obama

Michelle Obama is on the cover of Elle magazine’s December 2018 issue, on newsstands November 20.

Here’s what the former First Lady had to share with Oprah Winfrey, who also interviewed the “Becoming” author for her magazine as well. Here’s what she had to share…

On Donald Trump‘s birther claims: “In order for my children to have a normal life, even though they had security, they were in the world in a way that we weren’t. To think that some crazed person might be ginned up to think my husband was a threat to the country’s security; and to know that my children, every day, had to go to a school, and soccer games, parties, and travel; to think that this person would not take into account that this was not a game—that’s something that I want the country to understand. I want the country to take this in, in a way I didn’t say out loud, but I am saying now. It was reckless, it put my family in danger, and it wasn’t true. And he knew it wasn’t true.”

On going to counseling with Barack Obama: “It was about me exploring my sense of happiness. What clicked in me was that I need support and I need some from him. But I needed to figure out how to build my life in a way that works for me.”

On the pressure of being the first black family: “We felt the pressure from the minute we started to run. First of all, we had to convince our base that a black man could win. It wasn’t even winning over Iowa. We first had to win over black people. Because black people like my grandparents—they never believed this could happen. They wanted it for us. But their lives had told them, “No. Never.” Hillary was the safer bet for them, because she was known. Opening hearts up to the hope that America would put down its racism for a black man—I think that hurt too much. It wasn’t until Barack won Iowa that people thought, Okay. Maybe so.”

For more from Oprah‘s interview with Michelle Obama, visit OprahMag.com.