Washington (CNN) Right before Pete Buttigieg ended his presidential campaign Sunday night, his husband, Chasten, told the story of how it began.

"About a year and a half ago, my husband came home from work and told me, well, he asked me, 'What do you think about running for president?' And I laughed. Not at him but at life," a visibly emotional Chasten Buttigieg told a group of supporters gathered in South Bend, Indiana. "Because life gave me some interesting experiences on my way to find Pete."

He continued, "After falling in love with Pete, Pete got me to believe in myself again. And I told Pete to run because I knew there were other kids sitting out there in this country who needed to believe in themselves too."

Chasten Buttigieg is often private about how he came out, but he recalled in an interview with The Washington Post in 2019 how his family reacted poorly to him informing them he was gay, including one of his brothers saying, "No brother of mine." Buttigieg said that he felt like he couldn't stay at his home after the experience and slept both at a few friends' houses and in his car in the parking lot of the community college he attended.

He eventually made up with his family and his mother asked him to come back home. And when the Buttigiegs were married, Chasten said his parents walked him down the aisle.

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