At first, Michelle Robinson was just an assigned mentor to first-year Harvard Law student and summer associate Barack Obama at Chicago law firm Sidley and Austin, in 1989. Initially, the first lady said she was reluctant to date Obama, declining his advances not only because it could have been unprofessional, but also because, she thought, "any black guy who spent his formative years on an island had to be a little nerdy, a little strange," according to The Washington Post. Eventually, Michelle gave in and spent a day with the president at the Art Institute, strolling down Michigan Avenue and catching a screening of Spike Lee’s "Do the Right Thing." "He was definitely putting on the charm," Michelle told The Chicago Sun-Times. "It worked. He swept me off my feet." Two years later, over dinner at Chicago’s extravagant Gordon’s restaurant, in the middle of her lecture about taking their relationship seriously, a small ring box appeared on her dessert plate. That was serious enough for Michelle, who married Barack a year later. Fifteen years and two daughters later, the couple manages to maintain their relationship, even with the stresses of the world weighing them down… literally. While Michelle says being friends first is what laid their strong foundation, for President Obama, it’s the butterflies. "Sometimes, when we’re lying together," he told MSNBC, "I look at her and I feel dizzy."
(Susan Walsh/AP Photo)
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