J.D. Vance Admits He Was a ‘Terrible’ Boyfriend to Wife Usha

J.D. Vance is pulling back the curtain on the darker side of his early romance with wife Usha Vance, admitting he was once a volatile and emotionally difficult boyfriend who repeatedly threatened to walk away from their relationship.

The vice president made the surprising confession while discussing his new memoir, Communion, which focuses on his 2019 conversion to Catholicism. But during a recent interview on Allie Beth Stuckey’s Relatable podcast, Vance also revealed how his troubled childhood and unresolved emotional baggage nearly damaged the relationship that later became his marriage.

“The woman who is the second lady, she and I were dating. I was not a very good boyfriend,” Vance said.

Then came the admission that raised eyebrows.

“I had a terrible temper. I had, in hindsight, what people would have called attachment problems,” he continued.

Vance, 41, said those issues often showed up during arguments with Usha when they were both students at Yale Law School. Instead of staying and working through conflict, he said he would shut down, pull away and threaten to end things.

“We’d have an argument, and I’d be like, ‘Alright, see you later. You know, call me in a few days,’” he said.

It was a strikingly personal confession from one of the most polarizing figures in Republican politics, especially as Vance continues trying to sell a carefully crafted public image as a family man, Catholic convert and defender of traditional values.

Vance has long pointed to his unstable upbringing in Appalachia as a defining force in his life. Raised largely by his grandmother while his mother struggled with addiction, he has frequently framed his personal story as one of hardship, grit and reinvention.

But in the interview, Vance made it clear that escaping poverty and climbing the ladder did not automatically make him the kind of partner he wanted to be.

After high school, Vance joined the Marines before earning degrees in political science and philosophy from Ohio State University in 2009. He later landed at Yale Law School, one of the most elite institutions in the country, where he met Usha.

By most traditional measures, he was on a path to success. But Vance said he eventually realized that his ambition meant little if he could not become a good husband and father.

“I started thinking to myself, ‘Wait a second. All of this success that I’ve geared my life towards is not making me good at the thing that I care the most about, which is marrying this girl, being a good husband, being a good father,’” he said.

Vance also said Usha helped him navigate the culture shock of Yale, where he often felt out of place among his classmates.

He recalled telling her that, despite Yale Law School’s elite reputation, he felt he had more interesting conversations with people at Ohio State or even in high school.

According to Vance, Usha agreed.

“She actually said, ‘I agree with you,’” he recalled. “And she said, ‘I was a Yale undergrad, which was way more interesting than Yale law school.’”

The couple ultimately stayed together, working through the very issues Vance now says once threatened to derail their relationship.

J.D. and Usha married in June 2014, one year after both earned their law degrees from Yale. They welcomed their first son, Ewan, in 2017, followed by another son, Vivek, in 2020. Their daughter, Mirabel Rose, was born in December 2021.

Usha is now pregnant with the couple’s fourth child, a boy, who is reportedly due in late July.

Still, Vance’s candid remarks are likely to fuel new scrutiny of the vice president, who has built much of his political identity around family, faith and personal responsibility. His comments offer a rare glimpse behind the polished campaign-trail image and into a relationship that, by his own admission, had a rocky and emotionally turbulent start.