Aung San Suu Kyi has had to sacrifice her family life in order to follow her destiny. She left behind her husband and two children and her husband was only allowed to visit her for a very limited time while she was under house arrest. In 1995 she was asked whether, like Nelson Mandela, she had found the hardest thing about imprisonment was separation from her family:

 "Exactly I felt same way about my sons, not so much about my husband - he was grown up he could take care of himself, he was a man. But my sons were very young, my youngest was only 12 when I was first put under house arrest and I felt that very deeply..."

In 1999 Michael Aris, Aung San Suu Kyi's husband, was very sick with cancer. The Burmese government encouraged her to visit him but she was faced with the dilemma that if she went, she might never be able to return. In March he died without having seen his wife.