Wednesday, Sep 30, 2020 • 42min
They Do: Talking Marriage with Conan O’Brien
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Conan O’Brien video chats with Michelle to discuss the challenges and joys of marriage. Find the episode transcript here: http://spoti.fi/TMOP_transcripts
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Michelle Obama
Conan O'Brien
Transcript
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Michelle Obama
00:01
Barack
knows the story when we were engaged, I got mad at him about something 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.Share
00:14
I wasn't really throwing it out. I threw it where I would know it would go, I didn't mean it, I wasn't like "This is it". I just, it was effect.
Share
Conan O'Brien
00:25
You threw it strategically into a cup in the back seat where you knew you could get it back.
Share
Michelle Obama
00:29
Exactly, right!
Share
Speaker 3
00:33
I'll tell you what you've got to do, if you need me, you've got to prove your love is true. I'll stay with somebody who will love me right.
Share
Break
Michelle Obama
01:17
Hello, everyone, I am
Michelle Obama
and this is the Michelle Obama
podcast on this episode, we're gonna be talking about a beautiful and challenging and one of a kind relationship marriage.Share
01:37
My guest is the one and only
Conan O'Brien
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 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
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.Share
02:08
He is incredibly down to earth and unpretentious 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 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. Conan
...Share
Conan O'Brien
02:39
Hey, how are you?
Share
Michelle Obama
02:40
Hey good, how are you?
Share
Conan O'Brien
02:43
I'm doing great, I'm letting my hair grow
Share
Michelle Obama
02:45
It's good, it's very cute.
Share
Conan O'Brien
02:47
Thank you.
Share
Michelle Obama
02:48
You've got a lot of lot of bang acts.
Share
Conan O'Brien
02:51
Yeah I do, I do.
Share
Michelle Obama
02:52
It's going to get curly soon and uh that'll be good or do you blow it out? Is that a blowout?
Share
Conan O'Brien
02:60
I have a whole team.
Share
Michelle Obama
03:02
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.
Share
03:16
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, there was, there's no advice, there's no training for it yet. It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do.
Share
Conan O'Brien
03:32
You know, it's amazing you brought up the generation things I think that is key. There is a generational gap. I grew up very Irish Catholic, very religious household, 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, explained it to me in the driveway and explained it to me in a very confusing way, which made no sense.
Share
04:01
And my parents never, ever, ever talked about sex in any way. It didn't exist. The six of us, we just showed up, showed up, 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, I think it is, I hope somewhat easier for young people today.
Share
Michelle Obama
04:24
I mean, I know for me and for a lot of women were socialist as young girls to think about and I don't think it's thinking about marriage. I think it's thinking about the wedding, you envision the dress, the music, the storybook of of marriage, but I always knew that I was going to be married. I always knew that that's something that I wanted.
Share
04:48
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 of the value or the or the necessity of marriage. 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.Share
05:14
You know, he had a different view. Whereas I came from, as he called it, the black Leave it to beaver scenario.
Share
Conan O'Brien
05:21
I'm never going to make that show, by the way.
Share
Michelle Obama
05:23
Yeah, 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. Uh, 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?
Share
Conan O'Brien
05:41
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 uh when my wife and I got engaged, we went to a jeweler to start looking at her wedding ring 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 and I swear it was two hours of talking about this ring.Share
06:12
Then at the very end of the conversation I said to the woman, I said, so I'm supposed to get a ring to write what about my ring? And she went, oh yeah that she reached behind and this is a very high end place in
Manhattan
.Share
06:25
She reached behind her desk and took out a coffee can and turned it over, and 45 or 50 rings that all look kind of the same, just went clattering out and they look like pieces of a washing machine, like and she was like just take one of those like screw you. But this is what, you know, it's not about you, it's about her, right?
Share
Michelle Obama
06:46
And it's like why are you even here?
Share
Conan O'Brien
06:48
Yeah, I know you're here, need you just sit in the corner, didn't we give you some champagne, you know, drink up, just shush.
Share
06:59
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 my wife Liza is the perfect person for me but I also had to meet her at the perfect time.
Share
07:17
I was ready for the moment and when I was ready for the moment I was open to it, I was open to it, I was open to it and I was ready to meet her and then the almighty stage gave her the stage direction to like walk through the scene and where it's everything's right.
Share
07:33
The same is true for me and 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 you have to know who you are to know who you're looking for.
Share
Michelle Obama
07:53
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, we'd have better marriages, because if you're looking at a team, the people you want to win with the number one, you want everybody on your team to be strong, right?
Share
08:13
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? 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", you know, "I I don't shoot, I don't defend. I just dribble" you know, if we looked at marriage is a real team, then you want Lebron, you know, you don't you don't want the guy third row on the bench who didn't make the team.
Share
08:46
We often don't think about that.
Share
Conan O'Brien
08:48
Now you've got me thinking about marrying Lebron and this is uh this is this is taking well she's taking a turn.
Share
Michelle Obama
08:54
You have what you're supposed to say is I have married Lebron. Yes, my version of Lebron,
Share
09:00
My wife Eliza is Lebron James
Share
09:03
She is the Lebron James in your life. That's the equivalent.
Share
09:09
So how did you guys meet? What was your meeting love story?
Share
Conan O'Brien
09:17
Part of my job is to go out and shoot remote pieces. And so way back in late 1999, I just shoot a remote at a top advertising agency and I'm just supposed to go into this room and be a wise guy.
Share
Michelle Obama
09:30
Well that's unusual.
Share
Conan O'Brien
09:31
Yeah, exactly. And I walk into this room 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. So we're sitting here with the creative team for FCB
and everyone here is in black which is I guess in New York advertising thing.Share
09:52
I immediately start talking to her and then I'm not even trying to be funny, I'm just saying, wait so where'd you go to school? Uh-huh. That's interesting. And I'm not even trying to be funny. 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 I'm like what the F is? What is he doing?
Share
10:13
This is what what is it? And then I left the room after this 20 minute conversation with only her.
Share
10:20
And I said well I think that went pretty well and they're like "We got nothing we can use" and then I and then I said we should probably get everybody's like name and number. And my head writer,
Mike Sweeney
said "It's that that blonde woman, isn't it? " And I went, "No, no, no. " And he and he said why would we need their information? And I went for editing, they're like editing, what are you talking about?Share
10:44
So then we were breaking down the equipment and she walks out and we start talking some more and then we end up talking in the lobby 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.
Share
11:06
And me rather than being panicked I'm thinking "Yes you should have Children. Your children should be my children. "
Share
Michelle Obama
11:23
You said something that rang true for me about Liza and it's like she wasn't a game player 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.Share
11:46
At least in my experience up until then men would be coy they would you know, sort of look around the room. It was also complicated and it felt a little immature what struck me about
Barack
was his lack of pretense. I mean, he was somebody who knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to say it.Share
12:08
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. 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" and that was rare and it was attractive.
Share
Conan O'Brien
12:36
I think one of the things that you hit on, uhm, I never know how to refer to your husband.
Share
Michelle Obama
12:44
Barack
Share
Conan O'Brien
12:48
Yeah, because I feel, I, I feel like I can't say
Barack
, but uh, it just feels weird to me. But when you met that guy, uh, you're in a situation where, yes, initially it's going to be really nice. Let's walk. Let's get an ice cream.Share
13:04
Let's go to this really nice restaurant in
Chicago
. 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, 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. That's one day. It's all about you.Share
13:29
Uh, there's a band, everyone's giving you microwave ovens and you're thinking this is great. It's one day none of that tells you anything.
Share
Michelle Obama
13:41
This whole notion of love at first sight. I I believe in infatuation at first sight. I believe in attraction at first sight.
Share
13:50
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. So it's going to take you a minute, you know, to see this person in an array of situations, to see yourself with this person in an array of situations.
Share
14:10
It's like you want to, 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. People aren't perfect. Marriage is hard. It's a struggle for everyone.
Share
14:27
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?
Share
14:35
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 plan on making a commitment to date them, seeing where it goes, and then making it happen and there's work in 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, I'm going to invest in this other person 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, you can't Tinder your way into a long-term relationship.
Share
Conan O'Brien
15:19
You know, they've done, I think they've done studies 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.
Share
15:34
You know, everyone's Ben to
Vegas
or walked through a Vegas
show room and seeing all those people just sitting there pulling the slot machine handle over and over and over again. And the thing I always notice about them is their expression is joyless.Share
15:49
It's these old ladies and they've got a giant bucket of coins and tokens
Share
Michelle Obama
15:53
Hey That's my mom.
Share
Conan O'Brien
15:54
Okay, that's what this really is. It's an intervention is an intervention mary for your mom mary and get in here. Uh I've talked to your mom and I tried to bring this up and I was I was escorted away by your security.
Share
Michelle Obama
16:08
So we did this whole podcast.
Share
Conan O'Brien
16:09
Yeah, this whole podcast get mary mary and you've got a problem Marion and uh we got to straighten this out, 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 and I had been through a bunch of relationships, I had lived in 75 different apartments.
Share
16:37
I had lived in new york and then L. A. And the new york again. And then L. A. And I lived in
Chicago
briefly and I just bounced around. I went wherever I thought my career needed me to go and I I had been to therapy because I have been really unhappy and I had been through a lot.Share
16:55
So by the time I met my wife I kind of had got to the point where it dawned on me marrying someone, 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.
Share
Michelle Obama
17:21
36, 37 years for you,
Conan
yeah, you took along a loner.Share
Conan O'Brien
17:26
No, I'm just kidding, you don't know, I was at all. I like, whoa, I'm 88 years old, I've just had a lot of work done. Uhm but no, I got to the point where I realized that I could do more teamed up with this person that 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. It took me a while to get there.
Share
17:56
But I'm really glad I didn't try it before I was ready.
Share
Michelle Obama
18:06
Even once we do that, right?
Share
18:08
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.
Share
18:21
Uhm you know, I had my job and career, he had his job and career, he traveled, do his thing, then we'd come together and date nights and you know, wonderful uh weekends together, travel wasn't an issue because it was actually nice for him to be a way for us to be away and then come back together.
Share
18:41
But then for me all that seemed to change sort of the first the first tough years came uh with kids, 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, we had I think we've been married for four or five years, so we had a wonderful amount of time together which was helpful.
Share
19:10
But even with all of that, when these little people arrive and the whole process of pregnancy, conception delivery and then 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 because they are amazing and I would not trade them in, but they can mess up a marriage
Share
Conan O'Brien
19:41
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, It takes like one out of 20 BMW
or 30 or 50 or 100.Share
19:58
It comes down and it picks it up off the line and it shakes the
BMW
really hard for two minutes. 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.Share
20:21
And I read that article and I said this 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. And guess what if there is a problem, if there is a loose screw, if there is a little bit of a thing it is gonna come flying out of that.
Share
Michelle Obama
20:51
Yeah
Share
Conan O'Brien
20:56
But it's absolutely true that I thought 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? What do we do now?
Share
21:11
And I thought you would just magically, no, and I would go back to work and then I'd come home and they'd be like all these stews cooking and a fire in the fireplace and you'd hand me a martini and the baby would be have a little pink bow around, I said no, it was uh it was everything, it was, my wife went through a period of depression, she had a lot of anxiety about 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.
Share
21:47
And one day when I was out of the house, she heard through a friend of these women are really great, you got to use these women, they know what to do, they're kind of old school, it turned out that they were part of like some witch coven, they came over and they're witches like in the modern sense, but not in a negative way.
Share
22:05
I mean they're not wearing black hats and running around on brooms there, they look sort of like hippies and I came home to my apartment
Share
Michelle Obama
22:13
As long as they are calling themselves witches
Share
Conan O'Brien
22:16
Okay, I'm pretty sure they were calling themselves witches and this is all on me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure, 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 looks like a salad bar.
Share
22:31
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?
Share
22:40
Eventually we went to a dermatologist who said yes, put this, use this south heating pad. Yeah, exactly, Exactly. And then no problem off to the races. But the point is, she was panicked.
Share
22:53
I was panicked because she was panicked.
Share
Michelle Obama
22:55
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, because if your wife is breastfeeding, if she has a career, she's going to have to make a different set of sacrifices than you do. Um just the act of giving birth creates an inequality in opportunities, you know, not to complain about it.
Share
23:28
But the truth is, especially if you if 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 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.
Share
23:53
Um you know, that released 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, and my husband was still sort of bopping around living his life there. You start to sort of the resentment starts to build up for it started to, it's like, well what happened to the unit, what happened to my best friend, what happened to my buddy who's at the gym?
Share
24:20
It's like how the hell are you at the gym? You know dude, I you know, I've got cabbage on my breast and you know, I find that a lot of young couples that we know around this early childhood stage when they're kind of dealing with the stresses and dealing with the first time that they have to share roles, really truly share roles.
Share
24:41
You know when kids are babies when they're young, it's not the time to start grading your marriage paper, you know, because these are unique times. But a lot of times young couples, they hit these hard periods and because they're short tempered or they're tired, sex life is gone. The romance is out of the picture.
Share
25:04
Um They give up because nobody told them that this time is hard, You've got to know that they're going to be long periods of time when you can't stand each other, you know, and I I say it, you know, I said, you know on the book tour as a joke, there were times that I wanted to push
Barack
out of the window.Share
25:26
All 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. And these periods can last a long time. Uh, they can 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.
Share
25:46
And I just want to say, look, if that breaks a marriage than
Barack
and I have been broken off and on throughout our marriage. But we have a very strong marriage. 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.Share
Conan O'Brien
26:07
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.
Share
26:19
Um, 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 you brought the word up before, the biggest cancer to me on any relationship is resentment.
Share
26:36
What irish Catholics do is that if I'm mad at you about something, I don't bring it up, but I complained to everyone, but you about it. And it's a very it's human. But I think the irish Catholics are very good at it is we polish resentments to 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.
Share
27:02
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.
Share
27:12
Are you really 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 and then afterwards when the storm clears were better than we were before. So I'm on a mission in my marriage to fight resentment.
Share
Michelle Obama
27:36
That goes back to why it's important to have a whole person, you know, to have two whole people in the marriage, right? 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.
Share
27:53
A lot of women aren't taught that um 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 and all of the that those are just code words for keep it in, right?
Share
Conan O'Brien
28:12
We were also you were in a position 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.
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Michelle Obama
28:24
Well, it it goes back to the
BMW
example with Children. You know a presidency is like taking that little shaking period and do doubling the intensity of the sheikh and the time of the sheikh. It's it's the same thing.Share
28:41
I mean if you go into a presidency or a public life and your marriage isn't solid right, that experience will shake it and anything loose will fly off and the presidency is you know, you 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 just like okay who says um this is this is a marriage.
Share
29:09
What is this title? You know, Commander in chief? Everybody, everybody's salute and you know what what is it like when your partner is the most powerful man in the house in the world?
Share
29:22
You know, and everyone salutes them 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 your second person under all the rules of life. The Commander in chief takes precedent.
Share
29:51
So it's the ultimate test and it's unique. But the truth is that in our world, men and women still aren't equal, women still get paid 77 cents on the dollar compared to a man that can put a stress on a marriage.
Share
Conan O'Brien
30:08
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 were screaming in the audience are doing a tour and you get this kind of rock star reception and then walking into a room with my wife and she's not having any of it.Share
30:29
And I find it to be lifesaving. I find it to actually be the fact that your husband has this relationship with you and with your daughter's where you guys are not saluting him. You guys are not you know, none of that's happening. In fact the obvious happening. Yeah, yeah. You're trying to push him out a window occasionally.
Share
Michelle Obama
30:49
He is the butt of every joke.
Share
Conan O'Brien
30:52
Yeah. As am I poor guy! As am I. And so you know, my point is that I have found that one of the things that you get from a marriage that's magical is gravity.
Share
31:06
Because gravity is this incredible gift to us. Yeah, it causes are back to take Yes, it causes all these problems.
Share
31:17
But gravity is the gift you want gravity 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 wholly 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, we've seen you be really unfunny at the breakfast tape more on the
Michelle Obama
podcast after the break.Share
Speaker 4
32:01
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They're designed for toilets, tested with plumbers and eco friendly, feel confident knowing you've upped your down their care with a routine that leaves you feeling amazing by now, wherever Cottonelle products are sold, 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 are building up.
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Michelle Obama
32:57
But sometimes they do in a marriage.
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Conan O'Brien
33:00
My marriage.
Share
33:02
Yeah, yeah.
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Michelle Obama
33:04
This is where we're gonna, you know, I've already written about our our lawyerly way of arguing, you know, because we each you know, we know how to win an argument and sometimes I we can feel ourselves just loitering ourselves to death and we both like to win, I know that we've had to learn how to argue differently, because I hit fast and hard and then I forget it's like, oh, did that cut you deeply?
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33:36
I remember
Barack
knows the story when we were engaged, I got mad at him about something and I took my engagement ring off and I said, forget this, who needs this?Share
33:49
And I threw the ring, we were in my car, I wasn't really throwing it out, I threw it where I wouldn't know it would go because I was I didn't mean it, I wasn't like this, is it just, it was, it was perfect through it, strategically into it in the back seat where you know exactly what it's like, 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 where, how fast and quickly I can go there, um he does, so he remembers it and I don't write.
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34:26
So I had to learn that he feels things much more um deeply uh 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'm really, I don't even remember being mad, so I had to learn how not to go there, 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.
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34:60
Um how have you guys figured this out?
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Conan O'Brien
35:03
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 murder yourself. You're supposed to literally, my mother used to say she would tell me about working at this prestigious law firm in the early 19 sixties.
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35:23
The men all got to go into the lunch room and she, they set up a little card table for her outside because a woman couldn't go into the lunch room, it would never even happen today. But at the time I said to my 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?
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35:44
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, yeah, you don't process it, you just handed over to a higher power and you keep marching. And I thought that just doesn't work. It doesn't work.
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36:02
Like if my wife, if I do something and it pisses off Lizza 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. I would be, she would stab me with whatever is in the room that would even have to be sharp. She could stab me with this for Yeah, right in the jugular, Yeah, exactly. I'll offer this up.
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36:26
Uh and uh and and it's the same thing I have found, it doesn't work for her because it also doesn't work for me.
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36:33
And so arguments are, it took me a long time to realize that if someone screaming at me, it's because they're scared that a lot of times in life 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 mm mhm.
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Michelle Obama
37:01
What you describe in your approach and your marriage, you know, just speaks to why we have to learn to cultivate empathy in people in our Children. Because you needed to be successful in life in relationships. 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.
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Conan O'Brien
37:27
So I can understand where that frustration where that anger where that joy is coming from and then speak to that, you know, one of the things it makes me think about is that when you're in a marriage, you do not have the luxury of making the person and other you just don't have that luxury because you have to make this work.
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37:49
Um Yeah, there's the nuclear option of I'm out. Let's get a lawyer. But a lot of people do that, a lot of people do that, but for the most part, even people that have gone through a divorce have to still see that other person as a person.
Share
38:03
And we've all had really good friends that have done really stupid things and we've stuck with them because they're our friends and because there is 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. 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.Share
Michelle Obama
38:30
You just have to 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 um our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with our family, our siblings, our spouses, our peers, our co workers, um all of that uh contextual ises 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 as a comedian.
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39:06
Your whole profession requires insight, right? Um you observe and understand and then interpret in a funny way what is going on in the world around us. Um and we just can't take that for granted that work has to be done. Um I want to thank you,
Conan
for, oh my God, this was your insight.Share
Conan O'Brien
39:29
Yeah, well pick and choose the ones you like and uh throw away the rest but thank you, thanks for having me, I had so much fun with
Conan
, Hopefully you did too.Share
Michelle Obama
39:45
For those of you who are married, maybe you heard something that rang true 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.
Share
40:00
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.Share
40:18
Those realizations open you up to journeys that aren't always easy, but they are always always worth it. So with that, I just wanna thank you for joining me,
Conan
and thank you all for joining me for this part of our journey together.Share
Speaker 5
40:34
I will talk to you again very soon, Take care the
Michelle Obama
podcast is a Spotify original presented and produced by higher ground audio and collaboration with us Light Productions from higher ground audio dan fireman. Anna Holmes and moved.Share
40:53
Um Owen are executive producers, jenny Maribel is our editorial Assistant Adam Sachs is our consulting producer from dust Like Productions, Misha Yussef is the executive producer. Our win knicks and Jonathan Shiflett are the producers. Additional production support from
Marion
. Off Jonathan Shiflett is also our engineer. Monica Wilhelm is the archival producer and transcriber.Share
41:19
Rachel Garcia is the Dust Light editorial assistant
Daniel EK
Don Ostrow and Courtney hold our executive producers for Spotify Special thanks to Mackenzie smith
, joe Paulson Christina, Shockey melissa, winter china
Clayton Alex
may Caroline, Adler Morales and Marone, Helly Maskell.Share
41:41
And thanks to clean cut studio Search party music. Tyler lichtenberg, Dylan, Rupert Caroline Lipka Young creative agency and Diarra Nazarian. Our theme music is by Stevie Wonder, original music by Andy clawson and Telly fresco. The song you heard at the beginning of the show is Love Me Right by sister. Thanks for listening to the
Michelle Obama
podcast.Share
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Michelle Obama
Conan O'Brien