"It has to be a true partnership, and you have to really really like and respect the person you're married to because it is a hard road," Michelle told Oprah Winfrey in 2011 when asked what the key to her marriage was. "I mean, that's what I tell young couples. Don't expect it to be easy, melding two lives and trying to raise others, and doing it forever. I mean that's a recipe made for disaster, so there are highs and lows. But if in the end you can look him in the eye and say, 'I like you.' I stopped believing at love in first sight. I think you go through that wonderful love stage, but when it gets hard, you need a little bit more."

"I do care deeply about my husband," Michelle told Gayle King in an interview for CBS News in January 2012. "I am one of his biggest allies. I am one of his biggest confidants."

"Our life before moving to Washington was filled with simple joys," Michelle told the crowd at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. "Saturdays at soccer games, Sundays at grandma's house, and a date night for Barack and me was either dinner or a movie, because as an exhausted mom, I couldn't stay awake for both. And the truth is, I loved the life we had built for our girls. I deeply loved the man I had built that life with and I didn't want that to change if he became President."

"I loved Barack just the way he was," she continued.

"Even though back then Barack was a Senator and a presidential candidate, to me, he was still the guy who'd picked me up for our dates in a car that was so rusted out, I could actually see the pavement going by through a hole in the passenger side door," Michelle shared at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. "He was the guy whose proudest possession was a coffee table he'd found in a dumpster, and whose only pair of decent shoes was half a size too small."

"When people ask me whether being in the White House has changed my husband, I can honestly say that when it comes to his character, and his convictions, and his heart, Barack Obama is still the same man I fell in love with all those years ago," Michelle said in September 2012 at the Democratic National Convention. "He's the same man who, when our girls were first born, would anxiously check their cribs every few minutes to ensure they were still breathing, proudly showing them off to everyone we knew. That's the man who sits down with me and our girls for dinner nearly every night, patiently answering their questions about issues in the news, and strategizing about middle school friendships."

"I've been sharing our story a little bit, but I want the young people to pay attention because, back when I first met Barack [and] we started dating, he had everything going for him," Michelle said in a 2012 speech at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. "All right, ladies, listen to this. This is what I want you to be looking for. Yes, he was handsome — still is. I think so. He was charming, talented, and oh-so smart, truly. But that is not why I married him."

"Now, see, I want the fellas to pay attention to this. You all listening?" she continued. "What truly made me fall in love with Barack Obama was his character. You hear me? It was his character. It was his decency, his honesty, his compassion and conviction."

"One thing [that] is true [is] that I talk very candidly to my husband about how I feel, but that's the kind of relationship we have," Michelle told CBS News in 2012.

"On Oct. 3, 1992, Barack and I were married in Chicago," Michelle once told PopSugar. "And every day since, I've grown prouder and more in love with him."

"Fifty-five years young and that smile still gets me every single day," Michelle wrote in an Instagram'ed happy birthday message to her husband in 2016. "Happy birthday, Barack. I love you."

"A quarter of a century later, you're still my best friend & the most extraordinary man I know," Michelle wrote in a message to her husband on their 25th wedding anniversary.

"He was able to articulate a vision that resonated with people, that was real," Yahoo! News once reported Michelle told supporters of first meeting her husband in the summer of 1989. "And right then and there, I decided this guy was special. The authenticity you see is real, and that's why I fell in love with him."

"Barack woke up on our wedding day in October, 1992 with a nasty head cold," Michelle shared in an Instagram caption posted in May along with a photo of the couple from their wedding day. "Somehow, by the time I met him at the altar, it had miraculously disappeared and we ended up dancing almost all night. Twenty five years later, we're still having fun, while also doing the hard work to build our partnership and support each other as individuals. I can't imagine going on this wild ride with anybody else."

"If our ups and downs in our marriage can help young couples sort of realize that good marriages take work..." Michelle said in a 2009 interview with the New York Times about how her marriage weathered her husband's political career. "It's unfair to the institution of marriage, and it's unfair for young people who are trying to build something, to project this perfection that doesn't exist," the paper quoted her as having said, adding that "the last thing that we want to project" was an image of an always perfect marriage.

Although the Obamas have moved out of the White House their relationship continues to inspire a number of people with the sweet memories and messages of appreciation they send each other through social media.