Obama proposed to another woman before Michelle; politics took over

WASHINGTON: Michelle was not the only woman in Barack Obama’s life and he had been in a serious relationship before he met his future wife, according to an upcoming biography of the former US president.

The book Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, written by David J Garrow, shares for the first time the story of the woman Sheila Miyoshi Jager, his love interest, with whom Obama lived in Chicago, The Washington Post said.

Jager told author David Garrow, “In the winter of ‘86, when we visited my parents, he asked me to marry him.”

Jager’s parents objected to the union, believing her to be too young — she was 23 and Obama was 25.

Their romance continued, but Jager says Obama’s political ambitions got in the way. Possessed by a sense that he was destined to a life in politics, and could even become the first African-American president, she says race soon cast a shadow over their relationship.

Obama asked Jager to marry him again before he departed for Harvard Law School. He wanted her to go with him, she says, despite their increasingly fraught relationship, “mostly, I think, out of a sense of desperation over our eventual parting.”

After his first year at Harvard, Obama went to Chicago as a summer associate at a law firm. There he met Michelle Robinson, his future wife, the report said.