Former first lady Michelle Obama addressed conversations about her marriage and personal life, including rumours that she and Barack are getting divorced. Michelle spoke during an appearance on Sophia Bush's "Work in Progress podcast on Wednesday as she trashed the "society" and "stereotype". 

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The buzz around divorce started when Barack Obama attended former President Jimmy Carter's funeral without his wife in January. Then again, Michelle confirmed she wouldn’t attend Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration either. 

During the podcast, she said, "I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago, but I didn’t give myself that freedom. Maybe even as much as I let my kids live their own lives, I use their lives as an excuse for why I couldn’t do something.'" 

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"And now that’s gone. And so now I have to look at my — I get to look at my calendar, which I did this year, was a real big example of me, myself looking at something that I was supposed to do — you know, without naming names — and I chose to do what was best for me, not what I had to do, not what I thought other people wanted me to do," she continued. 

"I still find time to you know, give speeches, to be out there in the world, to work on projects. I still care about girls’ education. We, you know, the library is opening in a year from now. Certain things I am and am not doing with the library,” she added. 

"The interesting thing is that, when I say ‘no,’ for the most part people are like, ‘I get it, and I’m OK,’" she said.

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"That’s the thing that we as women, I think we struggle with disappointing people. I mean, so much so that this year people couldn't even fathom that I was making a choice for myself that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing," she added. 

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She further said, "This couldn't be a grown woman just making a set of decisions for herself, right? But that's what society does to us. We start actually, finally going, 'What am I doing? Who am I doing this for?' And if it doesn't fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labelled as something negative and horrible." 

This is not the first time; Michelle previously opened up about her marriage during an interview with Revolt TV. She said talked about the effort she and her husband put in. "There are times I’m 70, he’s 30. There are times he’s 60, I’m 40," she said. 

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What did Barack say about marriage? 

Recently, Barack spoke about the presidency and his relationship during a talk at Hamilton College. The former president revealed how the presidency affected his marriage of 32 years. 

"I was in a deep deficit with my wife. I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things," he said. 

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(With inputs from agencies)