How President Obama Is Ruining My Marriage

I found the following blog entry at BlackAndMarriedWithKids.Com. They reposted this from TheYoungMommyLife.Com Definitely show both blogs some love at your earliest convenience! This is some GREAT food for thought!

How President Obama Is Ruining My Marriage

It’s very inspiring to see a couple who love and respect each other as much as President Obama and Michelle Obama do. It’s clear in every interaction that they are each other’s best friend, and closest confidante. Their public displays of affection (including the “terrorist fist jab”) are legendary. They’re always hugging and kissing and gazing lovingly at each other.

But seeing their public love fest every day is making me grumpy.

Take Inauguration Day, for example. My husband and I watched as the new president and first lady made appearances at all 10 official balls. As we watched them dance over and over again, I got a little misty eyed. I looked over at the love of my life as he lay on the couch and I got inspired. I stood up and reached out my hand. “Honey, would you like to dance with me?”

Now, I will say that it was about 11 p.m. at this point. His response? “Nope, I don’t feel like dancing.” And with that, he rolled over on the couch and closed his eyes as if he was going to sleep.

I’m heated. “You know, President Obama would never say no to Michelle,” I huff. He kind of opens one eye, laughs and goes back to sleep.

I turn back to the TV, with a bit of jealousy mixing in with my emotional high. “He just made his wife First Lady, but I can’t get my husband to get off the #@$%^&!% couch,” I mutter to myself. I catch President Obama smile when he looks at his wife, like it’s the first time he’s seen her today, even though she’s been right by his side for the past 24 hours. That’s true love, I think to myself.

But what we don’t see is how they got there.

No one really talks about the years of stress they endured to get to this point. Remember, this isn’t a newlywed couple up there on the national stage. They’ve been together for more than 16 years. They know each other inside and out.

All we see now is the end result of years of hard work. All the airing of hurt feelings, the silent treatments, the shouting matches, the exasperation of trying to communicate when you really just want to be left alone – we missed all that. We’re late to the party.

One of the most inspiring chapters in President Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, was the last chapter where we talked about his family life and the struggles in his marriage. How the burden of parenthood often fell on Michelle; how his ambition often took him away from the family for extended periods of time and left Michelle feeling like a single mother; how she could hardly disguise her anger toward him at times and would turn her cheek away when he leaned in for a kiss. It was inspiring because it goes to show that we all can turn a marriage around and make it the envy of a nation.

Whenever I get mad at my husband, who has held that title for all of 21 months, I have to remember that we’re still in the pre-game warm-ups part of marriage (to use a sports analogy). We haven’t even reached game time, let alone being on the same team with two minutes left in the game.

We don’t have our clutch game together yet, like Barack and Michelle do. But we will. It just takes years of practice to make it look so easy.

Tara Pringle Jefferson is a freelance writer from Ohio, where she lives with her husband and two kids. Visit her blog, TheYoungMommyLife.com, for daily musings about the issues young moms face.

Throwback Thursday

President and First Lady

Barack & Michelle Obama

October 18, 1992

If these two aren't THE

pivotal Chocolate Bride & Groom,

then I don't know who is.

The absolute pride and adoration shared

between these two is seen as strongly

today as it was in these pictures.

So real, so in love, so inspiring.

Congratulations on the nomination, and we'll see you at the White House!

Happy Father's Day

If you were blessed with a great husband...most likely that great husband is/or will be a great father. We'd like to take a moment to wish all the daddys out there, a happy father's day!

This not-so-famous Father is 1/2 owner of Chocolate Brides!  Just thought I'd stick that in there!

Who Woulda Thunk It?

Whoa.  Who in the world would have imagined that a 'fist bump' - or what I have always referred to as 'dap' - could have caused so much freakin' attention.  I mean...the amount of news stories that surfaced the day after Obama's victory speech the night he clinched the democratic nomination was absolutely unbelievable.  Have you googled 'fist bump' lately? Amazing, aint it?

We came across a blogger who had a humorous take on the whole fist bump thing.  Here's an excerpt:

So don't panic A-merry-ca, it's cool. The fist- bump thing is par for the course, and it won't affect the way the "O" man does his job. And this president will play basketball instead of golf, and he might like to break out a little EWF on the West Lawn now and then. It's all good. "Oh damn there goes that Barrack blaring his stereo again, I told you this would happen as soon as we let them move in." [For those of you who will send me e-mails telling me how crass I am and to stop stereotyping, and making jokes at the expense of our race. Save them and get use to it. Because if the "O" man does win and become POTUS, you are going to see a whole lot more.

A brotha in the White House? Yeah I could fist-bump to that.

Our take on this infamous fist bump? Pure coolness.  She has his back...and he has hers. LOVE IT!

(but is it really that serious?  LOL!)

The Obamas

Isn’t it funny how, even as adults—grown-up women with grown-up mortgages, grown-up car notes and grown-up responsibilities—we can still find heroes to look up to? Some people think they don’t need role models once they survive puberty or graduate college, but I’ll still have them as long as I can find them—and I’ve found two in Barack and Michelle Obama. I love them. L-o-v-e them. They are, to me, an honest-to-goodness power couple, the real-life version of Cliff and Clair, the pair that has changed the face of Black America. Every election year that I can remember, our people have sort of been on the fringes of the action, adding dots of color along the campaign trails but being treated more like speed bumps than major stops on each candidate’s roadway to the White House. Barack Obama has changed all of that. He doesn’t sing, and chances are he probably shouldn’t, but that man and his wife are a set of true American idols.One of the things I admire most about his platform is his commitment to being proactive, not reactive. It’s a lot harder to do damage control after a major catastrophe than to build the resources and relationships to prevent the meltdown from happening in the first place. It took a while for people to seriously consider him, but I’ve witnessed a definitive change in the community over the year since he announced his presidential candidacy. Folks seem a little prouder, a little straighter, a little more self-assured. And they’re definitely following the race more closely because they can see themselves in the Obamas—not just in the color of their skin, but their principles and down-home, everyday people mannerisms. They’ve earned our respect, if not our votes.

I have a friend who’s gone to the polls every four years out of a sense of duty, but never really connected with the political process. This year, she drove all the way from D.C. to Philly to vote with her mother in their first primary election. I’ve observed little boys from the inner city, show a genuine interest in Barack Obama. There’s a confidence in them that had been untapped and almost irrelevant until this senator from Illinois showed them what they could be in 15, 20, 30 years. All of their lives, well-meaning adults have been feeding them the generic line that they could be anything if they put their minds to it. Barack took that cliché beyond lip service by showing us that that is really true. He’s a living, breathing, walking symbol of possibility. And his wife? Please. The sista is fierce. We know Barack’s help cometh from the Lord but with a woman that intelligent and articulate by his side as his top advisor, he can’t go anywhere but up.

No matter what kind of wrenches his opponents or the media try to throw into his political machine, my man Barack bounces back with the buoyancy of a true solider. The way he plows ahead despite the bullcrap loaded onto his footpath has inspired me to take a similar approach in my own career. The last few months have been filled with the hardest days of my life. After four years on the airwaves in New York City, the most influential radio market in the country, I was suddenly fired from my job. No warning, no explanation aside from a flimsy ‘corporate downsizing’ speech. Ironically, my first day of being abruptly and officially unemployed began on Super Tuesday, after I had dedicated my entire show to Obama by playing songs like "Yes We Can" by the Pointer Sisters and "The People" by Common. I just wanted my listeners to get out and vote. I just wanted them to feel as empowered and inspired as Barack makes me feel. It took my entire career to work my way to a radio spot in NYC and in a few moments—after one of the best shows of my life, no less—it was gone. I’m still struggling with the hurt and confusion of having my dream derailed, but thank I God for having more than one dream.

Now I’m focused on shaping Chocolate Brides into an instantly recognizable national brand. Publishing a magazine is hard work; if anyone ever tells you otherwise, kindly pinch them on the shoulder and tell them Kesha Monk sent it. With this type of project, advertising support is critical but it’s difficult to get businesses and individuals to support something positive, especially if it’s new and positive. I’ve had to make up for the lack of advertising by paying out of my own pocket. When I lost my job, and my main source of income, I thought that my goals were literally being murdered. Here I sat with thousands of subscriptions to fill and not a dime to produce the magazine. But all is not lost—it never is when God has free reign over your life and I invited Him to navigate mine a long, long time ago.

I draw inspiration from watching Barack work tirelessly to bring change to a system and society that for the longest time seemed unchangeable, virtually kicking the good ol’ boys right square in their high sadiddy rear ends. During the past two months since my termination, I've been at the lowest point of my entire life. But seeing a Black man run for president with his wife proudly by his side is the biggest example of defying the odds. So guess what? I have to keep moving even though I may have to go through 20 no’s from advertisers to get one yes. Somehow Barack and Michelle have given me hope. They’ve given me a greater appreciation for my husband and daughters who love me so much, and for the movement which is Chocolate Brides. I'm encouraged in spite of challenging circumstances. And thanks to the Obamas, I won't stop.