Barack Obama claims that following his presidency, he and his wife Michelle were in a “deep deficit”: I’ve been trying to embarrass myself.

Barack Obama has a new reason to add fun things to his schedule.

During a conversation with Hamilton College President Steven Tepper on Thursday, April 3, the former president, 63, said he was “in a deep deficit with my wife” after his two terms in the Oval Office ended, per The Daily Beast.

“So I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things,” Obama, who has been married to Michelle Obama since 1992, continued. Obama and Michelle, 61, have two daughters, Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23.

The Obamas have been open about the strain being in the White House put on their marriage in the past. In December 2022, Michelle said there was a decade during 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,” she said in a conversation with Revolt TV. “And guess when it happened? When those kids were little.”

The Obamas lived in the White House from January 2009 to January 2017.

In May 2023, when Obama was asked about those remarks on CBS Mornings, he replied, “Let me just say this: it sure helps to be out of the White House. And to have a little more time with her.”

“Michelle — when our girls were growing up, that was priority number one, two, three and four,” the former president continued. “And so, I did not fully appreciate, I think, as engaged of a father as I was, the degree of stress and tension for her, knowing that not just me and Michelle were under scrutiny and in this strange environment, but that we were raising our daughters in a kind of situation that just wasn’t normal. visit PEOPLE