5 things you did not know about Obama's ex-lover

The love story between the United States former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama is widely known and admired by billions of couples across the globe.

The couple have proven to be the perfect role models for young lovers as their story depicts two people who were there for each other from the tough and humble beginnings and stood by each other right to the very top; something which can be said to be script right from a Hollywood romantic film.

However, details have emerged on another woman who was there with Obama before Michelle came into the picture.

Obama spent many years dating a different woman - Sheila Miyoshi Jager.

Details about this relationship have been revealed in a new biography on Obama, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, by David J. Garrow, who interviewed Jager about the former President.

Here are 5 things you probably did not know about Sheila Miyoshi Jager.

1. She is a college professor who specialises in Korean politics and history

Jager is an associate professor and director of the East Asian program at Oberlin College in Ohio, where she lives with her husband and children. She’s written several books about Korean history and the decades-long tensions between North Korea, South Korea, America and China.

Her husband is historian Jiyul Kim, who specialises in East Asia, Cold War, and US foreign policy.

2. Obama proposed to Jager- Twice! Obama asked Jager to marry him years before he proposed to Michelle

“In the winter of ‘86, when we visited my parents, he asked me to marry him,” Jager said, but she told him “not yet”. Still, they stayed together.

3. Obama was still “involved” with Jager while he was beginning his romance with Michelle

Their relationship was on its last legs as Obama was set to depart Chicago for Harvard Law School, but still he proposed again, “mostly, I think, out of a sense of desperation over our eventual parting and not in any real faith in our future,” Jager said.

“Barack and Sheila had continued to see each other irregularly throughout the 1990-91 academic year, notwithstanding the deepening of Barack’s relationship with Michelle Robinson,” Garrow writes.

“I always felt bad about it,” Jager said.

4. She is the Author of ‘Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea’

Jager is the author of a book called Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea, which looks at the operational history of the Korean War and the interaction between military and society at the time.

5. She is married to Historian Jiyul Kim

Jager is married to historian Jiyul Kim, who specializes in East Asia, Cold War, and US foreign policy. Kim received his BA in anthropology and biology from UPenn, and his MA in Asian studies from Harvard.