Michelle Obama and Melania Trump agree on at least one thing: The secret to a happy marriage? Separate bathrooms.
When it comes to public image, Obama and Trump could hardly be further apart: Michelle is a celebrated progressive go-getter, while Melania has been characterized by the media as an unhappy and reluctant wife. But both women have been married to presidents, and Amo Mama reports that they’ve apparently learned similar lessons about needing some space.
Michelle and Melania’s Marriage 101
Since entering the White House, Melania Trump has been compared to a prisoner in an unhappy marriage by many critics of the president. But Melania Trump might have more in common with her predecessor than the media would have people think.
“One of the keys to a successful marriage is separate bathrooms,” Michelle Obama said on the Today show last October, according to the New York Post. “When he enters my bathroom sometimes I’m like, ‘Why are you in here?’ And he’s like, ‘I live here, can I enjoy my bathroom too?’”
As it turns out, Melania Trump had a similar answer for People in 2015, telling the magazine that separate bathrooms are “the key to a healthy marriage.”
The two women are hardly the first celebrities to endorse separate bathrooms — for those with enough money — as the so-called “secret” to a long and happy marriage.
Mrs. Trump mistreated by the media
Of course, in the mass media, Melania and Donald Trump are depicted as staying in an otherwise unhappy marriage for political reasons. A famously persistent — though never proven — story claims that Melania even cried when her husband won the election.
On the other hand, the Obamas are lionized by the mass media as the ideal couple: liberal, forward-thinking, co-equal. There is no question that the Obamas are both forceful personalities, and Michelle, the ambitious career women who has long faced criticism that she “emasculates” her husband, opened up in her memoir last year about the challenges of navigating their differences.
Indeed, while acknowledging that many people see their marriage as perfect, Michelle revealed in her bestselling book that the Obamas have even sought marriage counseling in the past, according to TIME.
For her part, Melania Trump has sought to present a united front with her husband. The FLOTUS has denied claims that she sleeps in separate bedrooms from her husband, despite his alleged affairs, and she insists that having a strong personality is simply a necessary part of being married to a man like Trump.
“We are very equal in the relationship and that’s very important. You know, to marry a man like Donald, you need to know who you are and you need to be very strong and smart. He needs to know that he can rely on me sometimes,” Melania told Larry King in 2005.
To give Melania some credit, being married to Donald Trump must require more than a little personal space. What’s more surprising is that the media insists on covering Melania and Michelle so differently.
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