The Obamas’ marriage has taught me the good times can help us deal with the bad

Helene’s second hospital admission was less dramatic, but there’s no dodging that 2023 has started with a solid mix of things I love about summer – backyard inflatable pool, front garden pickle ball, reading anywhere, daily mindset reset in the sea, gossiping with my husband in a sunlit morning bed – and hospital drives and catastrophising that won’t be quashed.

We often kid ourselves the start of a new trip around the sun will magically erase the worries of the previous one. That it will bring relaxing and socialising to refresh and fill us up. Certainly, I’ve had some incredible summers –renting a place with friends Burge and Coss a couple of houses up from Jackie and Sean in Blairgowrie, post-dinner Perudo games, beach cricket one dayers, feeling excellent making kids’ breakfast crepes even after a boozy night.

But this one feels it also comes with flashing warning signs: don’t get too comfortable.

It’s not super fun and I’ve cried a bit – sorry ma – but I think it’s probably the best way to tackle a new year. The imperfect, the uncertain, is what I’m valuing right now, while everyone else who is more together is madly setting goals and high-minded ground rules and posting ghastly motivational quotes on Insta.

My role model here is Michelle Obama. Last week she revealed she “couldn’t stand” Barack for 10 years – TEN YEARS – while their “terrorist” kids were little. That she resented the uneven split of responsibility in the marriage and household. But that a decade of bad times were worth 30 years of being together.

The Obamas have long been a marriage poster couple and Michelle’s admission of struggles behind the scenes of their political and personal brands makes them even more relatable. I wish she’d done it earlier. That she’d said important years aren’t universally about unicorns and rainbows and smooth sailing. They’re also about loneliness, unpredictability, responsibility. The privilege of holding beloved veiny hands.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.