President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden opened up about their life, marriage, prayer and more in an interview with People magazine.
“She [the first lady] has a backbone like a ramrod,” the president shared when asked about the secret to staying together for 43 years in a piece by the magazine published Wednesday. (RELATED: Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez Deliver Stunning Performances At Joe Biden’s Inauguration)
“Everybody says marriage is 50/50,” he added. “Well, sometimes you have to be 70/30. Thank God that when I’m really down, she steps in, and when she’s really down, I’m able to step in.”
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“We’ve been really supportive of one another,” Biden added. “I’ve read all that data as well about families under pressure, and that’s why I’m glad she kept her profession. It’s really important that she’s an educator, although she took off two years when we first got married because the boys were little.” (RELATED: Michelle Obama, Jill Biden Celebrate The Troops On ‘The Voice’)
Jill shared that with all that the couple has “been through together — the highs, the lows and certainly tragedy and loss — there’s that quote that says sometimes you become stronger in the fractured places. That’s what we try to achieve.”
FLOTUS also joked later that after “43 years of marriage there’s really not that much more to fight about.”
The president also opened up about his faith and said his religion “is a safe place.”
“I never miss mass, because I can be alone,” he added. “I mean, I’m with my family but just kind of absorbing the fundamental principle that you’ve got to treat everyone with dignity.”
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“Jill, when she wants me to get a real message, she tapes it on the mirror above the sink where I shave,” POTUS continued. “And she put up a great quote from Kierkegaard saying, ‘Faith sees best in the dark.’ Other people may meditate. For me, prayer gives me hope, and it centers me. ”
The president later talked about how important his family is to him and how, if given a choice, he would pick to spend the day with them over anything else.
“My whole life, I’d always rather be with my boys, with my children,” Biden explained in a clip from the interview. “I like being with everybody else. But if I got to go away skiing with the boys and my daughter. I went with my grandkids, to me it’s the thing that I care about the most.”
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At one point, Biden said he hopes the country is back to normal a year from now in regards to the pandemic.
“I hope…we have fundamentally returned to normal as it relates to COVID — and it’s going to be hard, because they’re predicting another 100,000-150,000 dead unless we take precautions, even with the vaccine,” POTUS shared.
“I also hope that we have really begun to make inroads on equity for all people…where they can have decent jobs and decent opportunities,” he added. “And so I hope we are in the position where the economy is growing, people are back to a degree of optimism, about their self and family.”