Belle Burden’s “Strangers”

[Anonymous]

Thank goodness it's only men who are walkaway wives, not women. .I just don't understand why they call them walkaway "wives".That's a misgendering if anything is

[Anonymous]

I guess my read of the book, which I am almost finished with, is that they never had a "real" marriage. She seemed infatuated and he seemed like a frat boy and they both seem a bit cliche and boring.

I agree with the poster who said it wasn't very reflective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see this differently than a lot of other commenters and don’t necessarily judge him leaving the kids.

I was married to someone with a personality disorder and one of his favorite threats was to threaten to take the kids from me. This was despite me being the primary caregiver.

Would it be better if she was forced to lose primary custody and not see her kids half the time? I believe a child needs both parents, but there is some nuance when one parent has been the primary parent all along.


While she comes from money, she was mostly illiquid, and he was working 24-7 to support that lifestyle. I am familiar with that NY finance lifestyle and you can’t have it both ways. If you want the country house, private school and nice apartment then your husband is mostly absent unless you have generational wealthy to use. It’s not surprising he was mostly absent. I highly doubt she ever offered to return to work so he could scale back and spend time with the kids. She instead probably wanted that Colony Club membership more. Then they get divorced and it makes sense she continued on as the primary and really only true parent.

IMHO the gentlemanly thing to do wasn’t for him to leave her AND take her kids half the time while he was at it. He probably thought he was choosing the lesser of two evils.

I’ve known plenty of these NY women and they are vapid, shallow and their main priority is the lifestyle and social life. I’d be shocked if she’s not similar.

this is the best comment in this thread and as a Native New yorker this is so true.

Your average person can easily fall for her story. If you have any experience with her world then you can poke many holes in her story.

Also everyone on the internet claims the guy is a narcissist with a personality disorder. No way. Any man with a personality disorder/narcissist would be speaking out to the media and relishing in the drama. Instead he’s been quiet with the exception of one statement that said very little. That’s not how a narcissist responds to conflict.

You’re very naive about narcissism and personality disorders.

Wouldn’t a narcissist go nuts in a divorce? It doesn’t seem common to to MIA and leave the ex-spouse alone. I thought they like conflict, no?

Yes.By making the legal process as awful as possible. It's not always about stalking and harassing.

Like what? Genuinely curious!

[Anonymous]

Financial abuse via the family courts is real

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see this differently than a lot of other commenters and don’t necessarily judge him leaving the kids.

I was married to someone with a personality disorder and one of his favorite threats was to threaten to take the kids from me. This was despite me being the primary caregiver.

Would it be better if she was forced to lose primary custody and not see her kids half the time? I believe a child needs both parents, but there is some nuance when one parent has been the primary parent all along.


While she comes from money, she was mostly illiquid, and he was working 24-7 to support that lifestyle. I am familiar with that NY finance lifestyle and you can’t have it both ways. If you want the country house, private school and nice apartment then your husband is mostly absent unless you have generational wealthy to use. It’s not surprising he was mostly absent. I highly doubt she ever offered to return to work so he could scale back and spend time with the kids. She instead probably wanted that Colony Club membership more. Then they get divorced and it makes sense she continued on as the primary and really only true parent.

IMHO the gentlemanly thing to do wasn’t for him to leave her AND take her kids half the time while he was at it. He probably thought he was choosing the lesser of two evils.

I’ve known plenty of these NY women and they are vapid, shallow and their main priority is the lifestyle and social life. I’d be shocked if she’s not similar.

this is the best comment in this thread and as a Native New yorker this is so true.

I think he was terrible/selfish/personality disordered for not wanting custody but I do agree that it seems her life essentially revolved around her children and the upper class lifestyle she enjoyed, without accounting for the fact that the type of husband to provide that lifestyle would have to be away from home so much and that that was a risky situation. I think he probably wanted to be away and at work regardless of whether she wanted to pitch in and have a career of her own but she sure seems like the type that didn't want to work and believed women should be SAHMs.

She grew up extremely privileged and had an excellent education so she's not a terrible writer, but is she smart? No.

Generally people that are into being mothers don’t ship their kids off to boarding school and let them quarantine with another family during covid. This lady is dull and helpless. And her writing sucks — I don’t know what kind of crap y’all read that you think this was a good book.

Someone’s clearly clueless about wealthy families.

On the contrary, I’m aware of how wealthy families generally have bad parents.

I actually do wonder about this. I’m not a fan of parenting and joke I was meant to be born an aristocrat. I’m not convinced the middle class helicopter parenting style is really any better.

There’s a happy middle. It’s mostly upper-upper/middle class parents that helicopter. Belle came off as a simpleton to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see this differently than a lot of other commenters and don’t necessarily judge him leaving the kids.

I was married to someone with a personality disorder and one of his favorite threats was to threaten to take the kids from me. This was despite me being the primary caregiver.

Would it be better if she was forced to lose primary custody and not see her kids half the time? I believe a child needs both parents, but there is some nuance when one parent has been the primary parent all along.


While she comes from money, she was mostly illiquid, and he was working 24-7 to support that lifestyle. I am familiar with that NY finance lifestyle and you can’t have it both ways. If you want the country house, private school and nice apartment then your husband is mostly absent unless you have generational wealthy to use. It’s not surprising he was mostly absent. I highly doubt she ever offered to return to work so he could scale back and spend time with the kids. She instead probably wanted that Colony Club membership more. Then they get divorced and it makes sense she continued on as the primary and really only true parent.

IMHO the gentlemanly thing to do wasn’t for him to leave her AND take her kids half the time while he was at it. He probably thought he was choosing the lesser of two evils.

I’ve known plenty of these NY women and they are vapid, shallow and their main priority is the lifestyle and social life. I’d be shocked if she’s not similar.

this is the best comment in this thread and as a Native New yorker this is so true.

Your average person can easily fall for her story. If you have any experience with her world then you can poke many holes in her story.

Also everyone on the internet claims the guy is a narcissist with a personality disorder. No way. Any man with a personality disorder/narcissist would be speaking out to the media and relishing in the drama. Instead he’s been quiet with the exception of one statement that said very little. That’s not how a narcissist responds to conflict.

You’re very naive about narcissism and personality disorders.

Wouldn’t a narcissist go nuts in a divorce? It doesn’t seem common to to MIA and leave the ex-spouse alone. I thought they like conflict, no?

Yes.By making the legal process as awful as possible. It's not always about stalking and harassing.

Like what? Genuinely curious!

in my case insisting on litigating when I requested mediation several times. There is not enough money at stake to warrant a legal battle that is already into 6 figures. Filing frivolous motions. Stalling. Forgetting to submit paperwork resulting in court rescheduling. Constantly having some emergency crop up so everything is rescheduled and pushed back. It has been endless. I have spent a $hit ton to refute false allegations. He is doing everything he can to rattle me. It’s not working but my lawyer sees what he has been doing. This has gone on so long our first judge retired. So back to court just to bring new judge up to speed. My ex seems determined to exert control over me but it isn’t working and his behavior is finally working against him. I got good advice from people who told me this would be a marathon. And I have an excellent therapist. But the whole process has been ridiculous. He could have had daily therapy for the last 18 months for less than the cost of his insistence on going to trial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see this differently than a lot of other commenters and don’t necessarily judge him leaving the kids.

I was married to someone with a personality disorder and one of his favorite threats was to threaten to take the kids from me. This was despite me being the primary caregiver.

Would it be better if she was forced to lose primary custody and not see her kids half the time? I believe a child needs both parents, but there is some nuance when one parent has been the primary parent all along.


While she comes from money, she was mostly illiquid, and he was working 24-7 to support that lifestyle. I am familiar with that NY finance lifestyle and you can’t have it both ways. If you want the country house, private school and nice apartment then your husband is mostly absent unless you have generational wealthy to use. It’s not surprising he was mostly absent. I highly doubt she ever offered to return to work so he could scale back and spend time with the kids. She instead probably wanted that Colony Club membership more. Then they get divorced and it makes sense she continued on as the primary and really only true parent.

IMHO the gentlemanly thing to do wasn’t for him to leave her AND take her kids half the time while he was at it. He probably thought he was choosing the lesser of two evils.

I’ve known plenty of these NY women and they are vapid, shallow and their main priority is the lifestyle and social life. I’d be shocked if she’s not similar.

this is the best comment in this thread and as a Native New yorker this is so true.

Your average person can easily fall for her story. If you have any experience with her world then you can poke many holes in her story.

Also everyone on the internet claims the guy is a narcissist with a personality disorder. No way. Any man with a personality disorder/narcissist would be speaking out to the media and relishing in the drama. Instead he’s been quiet with the exception of one statement that said very little. That’s not how a narcissist responds to conflict.

You’re very naive about narcissism and personality disorders.

Wouldn’t a narcissist go nuts in a divorce? It doesn’t seem common to to MIA and leave the ex-spouse alone. I thought they like conflict, no?

Yes.By making the legal process as awful as possible. It's not always about stalking and harassing.

Like what? Genuinely curious!

in my case insisting on litigating when I requested mediation several times. There is not enough money at stake to warrant a legal battle that is already into 6 figures. Filing frivolous motions. Stalling. Forgetting to submit paperwork resulting in court rescheduling. Constantly having some emergency crop up so everything is rescheduled and pushed back. It has been endless. I have spent a $hit ton to refute false allegations. He is doing everything he can to rattle me. It’s not working but my lawyer sees what he has been doing. This has gone on so long our first judge retired. So back to court just to bring new judge up to speed. My ex seems determined to exert control over me but it isn’t working and his behavior is finally working against him. I got good advice from people who told me this would be a marathon. And I have an excellent therapist. But the whole process has been ridiculous. He could have had daily therapy for the last 18 months for less than the cost of his insistence on going to trial.

You're not going to trial. Both his attorney and possibly yours are doing everything they can to maximize the attorneys fees. If you ever actually get a trial date the judge will call counsel into chambers and try to persuade them to settle. You said it yourself there are no real issues worth going to trial on. Judges are too busy to want to deal with yet another divorce case motivated by spite. If you dont settle on the trial date the judge will send you back to mediation. This will happen another 3 or 4 times until both of you run out of money for attorneys fees and are.exhausted. then the case will settle. The judge knows this and both attorneys know it. The breaking point for your husband will be after the third or fourth trial postponement when his attorney insists on a trial retainer of $50,000-$100,000. Do you will both end up in the same place you would have been on Day 1 except being several hundred thousand poorer in attorneys fees.

[Anonymous]

Unless you’re friends with her, we don’t have any proof that her ex was difficult legally. I would think it would have been included in her book if that were the case. Seems to me he was pretty happy to get rid of her, and based on the timing she shared it sounds like a fairly quick divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see this differently than a lot of other commenters and don’t necessarily judge him leaving the kids.

I was married to someone with a personality disorder and one of his favorite threats was to threaten to take the kids from me. This was despite me being the primary caregiver.

Would it be better if she was forced to lose primary custody and not see her kids half the time? I believe a child needs both parents, but there is some nuance when one parent has been the primary parent all along.


While she comes from money, she was mostly illiquid, and he was working 24-7 to support that lifestyle. I am familiar with that NY finance lifestyle and you can’t have it both ways. If you want the country house, private school and nice apartment then your husband is mostly absent unless you have generational wealthy to use. It’s not surprising he was mostly absent. I highly doubt she ever offered to return to work so he could scale back and spend time with the kids. She instead probably wanted that Colony Club membership more. Then they get divorced and it makes sense she continued on as the primary and really only true parent.

IMHO the gentlemanly thing to do wasn’t for him to leave her AND take her kids half the time while he was at it. He probably thought he was choosing the lesser of two evils.

I’ve known plenty of these NY women and they are vapid, shallow and their main priority is the lifestyle and social life. I’d be shocked if she’s not similar.

this is the best comment in this thread and as a Native New yorker this is so true.

Your average person can easily fall for her story. If you have any experience with her world then you can poke many holes in her story.

Also everyone on the internet claims the guy is a narcissist with a personality disorder. No way. Any man with a personality disorder/narcissist would be speaking out to the media and relishing in the drama. Instead he’s been quiet with the exception of one statement that said very little. That’s not how a narcissist responds to conflict.

You’re very naive about narcissism and personality disorders.

Wouldn’t a narcissist go nuts in a divorce? It doesn’t seem common to to MIA and leave the ex-spouse alone. I thought they like conflict, no?

Yes.By making the legal process as awful as possible. It's not always about stalking and harassing.

Like what? Genuinely curious!

in my case insisting on litigating when I requested mediation several times. There is not enough money at stake to warrant a legal battle that is already into 6 figures. Filing frivolous motions. Stalling. Forgetting to submit paperwork resulting in court rescheduling. Constantly having some emergency crop up so everything is rescheduled and pushed back. It has been endless. I have spent a $hit ton to refute false allegations. He is doing everything he can to rattle me. It’s not working but my lawyer sees what he has been doing. This has gone on so long our first judge retired. So back to court just to bring new judge up to speed. My ex seems determined to exert control over me but it isn’t working and his behavior is finally working against him. I got good advice from people who told me this would be a marathon. And I have an excellent therapist. But the whole process has been ridiculous. He could have had daily therapy for the last 18 months for less than the cost of his insistence on going to trial.

You're not going to trial. Both his attorney and possibly yours are doing everything they can to maximize the attorneys fees. If you ever actually get a trial date the judge will call counsel into chambers and try to persuade them to settle. You said it yourself there are no real issues worth going to trial on. Judges are too busy to want to deal with yet another divorce case motivated by spite. If you dont settle on the trial date the judge will send you back to mediation. This will happen another 3 or 4 times until both of you run out of money for attorneys fees and are.exhausted. then the case will settle. The judge knows this and both attorneys know it. The breaking point for your husband will be after the third or fourth trial postponement when his attorney insists on a trial retainer of $50,000-$100,000. Do you will both end up in the same place you would have been on Day 1 except being several hundred thousand poorer in attorneys fees.

You have not written anything I am already not well aware of. I have made 3 settlement offers to date, none of which were even countered. He will string this along for as long as he can. But I am also aware from court records that his lawyer typically does bring his clients to trial and I recently met someone whose ex used the same attorney. Very similar situations. Her trial lasted 2 weeks. I don’t need to be told at this point that the lawyers are the winners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you’re friends with her, we don’t have any proof that her ex was difficult legally. I would think it would have been included in her book if that were the case. Seems to me he was pretty happy to get rid of her, and based on the timing she shared it sounds like a fairly quick divorce.

You didn’t read the book. He was going to keep his money AND take half of the marital homes she paid for by emptying her own trusts. She writes that she was in a very dark place while contemplating her financial ruin. He only settled at the 11th hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you’re friends with her, we don’t have any proof that her ex was difficult legally. I would think it would have been included in her book if that were the case. Seems to me he was pretty happy to get rid of her, and based on the timing she shared it sounds like a fairly quick divorce.

The fact he was holding her to the prenup, fighting over the club, etc were mentioned in the book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why did she even marry him? I have a friend an immigrant from Eastern Europe. She married a trust funder and they have the opposite arrangement: her earnings are only hers and he pays rent/mortgage. She only marginally contributes to living expenses.
She’s a lawyer and already amassed a fortune, saving every year almost $200k and dumping it in stocks

Good arrangement, seems fair. Since Belle was the trustfund baby in this situation, that explains the pre-nup. Not going to cry for a woman who didn't work for years and has millions in real estate.

She had no idea when she signed the prenup that he would go on to make that much money. Always risks in that respect.

It’s unclear to me how big her trusts and inheritance actually are though …

At least $10m if she was able to buy him out of both houses.

What’s maddening is not him retaining his earnings it’s him pocketing the appreciation on houses and emptying her trusts (which are HIS kids trusts in the end). Where her lawyers were looking ? It’s a predatory prenup and they should have advised better to state that appreciation on whatever is funded with trust remains in trust

Who knows how it was reviewed? Belle has a BA from Harvard and a law degree from NYU, but she says she was "in love" and nothing else mattered at that point. Plus, if you've never had to worry about money in your life, it probably didn't register to her that one day she may need to worry when her husband fleeces her for all her assets.

They were engaged in 3 months and married soon after. Definitely a rush job

The way he seduced her when she was living with her boyfriend. He is all red flags.

I ak guessing she figured she would be the wealthier one and figured he could keep what he earned since he grew up poorer. I dont think the prenup specified that she pay half of expenses, I think he just enforced it as “fair” and she went along with it thinking why would it matter, they were in it together.

One of ten articles floating around says he glommed on to her after hearing her give a public talk about her late father’s book collection and realizing what a prominent background she had.

he sounds like a Daphne D'murier novel/memento style conman. I'm really really surprised that the book wasn't edited to show him as this creepy guy who glommed on to this heiress as a long con b/c that is how it reads to me. I really hope that is how they play it in the film. it completely sounds like the plot of one of a l. durell novel about the working umc and their designs upon the true upper class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems he was very contemptuous of her. I wonder if it's because she sat at home all those years despite having a law degree. But he does sound like a jerk regardless, especially considering the "brushes with the law" as a teen and the way she says he said he wanted to "protect" her in the early days of their relationship--that read as weird to me and would have caused me to question this person's integrity.

Doubtful. He could have been contemptuous of her for her privilege or for any other number of reasons, but that is a typical arrangement for high-earning males. More than one rainmaker male partner in my NY law firm has married a female lawyer who then leaves her practice and becomes a SAHM.

its obvious this guy was just running a long con.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see this differently than a lot of other commenters and don’t necessarily judge him leaving the kids.

I was married to someone with a personality disorder and one of his favorite threats was to threaten to take the kids from me. This was despite me being the primary caregiver.

Would it be better if she was forced to lose primary custody and not see her kids half the time? I believe a child needs both parents, but there is some nuance when one parent has been the primary parent all along.


While she comes from money, she was mostly illiquid, and he was working 24-7 to support that lifestyle. I am familiar with that NY finance lifestyle and you can’t have it both ways. If you want the country house, private school and nice apartment then your husband is mostly absent unless you have generational wealthy to use. It’s not surprising he was mostly absent. I highly doubt she ever offered to return to work so he could scale back and spend time with the kids. She instead probably wanted that Colony Club membership more. Then they get divorced and it makes sense she continued on as the primary and really only true parent.

IMHO the gentlemanly thing to do wasn’t for him to leave her AND take her kids half the time while he was at it. He probably thought he was choosing the lesser of two evils.

I’ve known plenty of these NY women and they are vapid, shallow and their main priority is the lifestyle and social life. I’d be shocked if she’s not similar.

this is the best comment in this thread and as a Native New yorker this is so true.

Your average person can easily fall for her story. If you have any experience with her world then you can poke many holes in her story.

Also everyone on the internet claims the guy is a narcissist with a personality disorder. No way. Any man with a personality disorder/narcissist would be speaking out to the media and relishing in the drama. Instead he’s been quiet with the exception of one statement that said very little. That’s not how a narcissist responds to conflict.

You’re very naive about narcissism and personality disorders.

Wouldn’t a narcissist go nuts in a divorce? It doesn’t seem common to to MIA and leave the ex-spouse alone. I thought they like conflict, no?

Yes.By making the legal process as awful as possible. It's not always about stalking and harassing.

Like what? Genuinely curious!

in my case insisting on litigating when I requested mediation several times. There is not enough money at stake to warrant a legal battle that is already into 6 figures. Filing frivolous motions. Stalling. Forgetting to submit paperwork resulting in court rescheduling. Constantly having some emergency crop up so everything is rescheduled and pushed back. It has been endless. I have spent a $hit ton to refute false allegations. He is doing everything he can to rattle me. It’s not working but my lawyer sees what he has been doing. This has gone on so long our first judge retired. So back to court just to bring new judge up to speed. My ex seems determined to exert control over me but it isn’t working and his behavior is finally working against him. I got good advice from people who told me this would be a marathon. And I have an excellent therapist. But the whole process has been ridiculous. He could have had daily therapy for the last 18 months for less than the cost of his insistence on going to trial.

You're not going to trial. Both his attorney and possibly yours are doing everything they can to maximize the attorneys fees. If you ever actually get a trial date the judge will call counsel into chambers and try to persuade them to settle. You said it yourself there are no real issues worth going to trial on. Judges are too busy to want to deal with yet another divorce case motivated by spite. If you dont settle on the trial date the judge will send you back to mediation. This will happen another 3 or 4 times until both of you run out of money for attorneys fees and are.exhausted. then the case will settle. The judge knows this and both attorneys know it. The breaking point for your husband will be after the third or fourth trial postponement when his attorney insists on a trial retainer of $50,000-$100,000. Do you will both end up in the same place you would have been on Day 1 except being several hundred thousand poorer in attorneys fees.

You have not written anything I am already not well aware of. I have made 3 settlement offers to date, none of which were even countered. He will string this along for as long as he can. But I am also aware from court records that his lawyer typically does bring his clients to trial and I recently met someone whose ex used the same attorney. Very similar situations. Her trial lasted 2 weeks. I don’t need to be told at this point that the lawyers are the winners.

Ok. The point is those commenters who are advocating for the OPs friend to use the divorce legal system to extract vengeance don't know what the heck they are talking about. The friends husband is absolutely right--they should do an uncontested divorce and mediate their property settlement and custody agreement. In other words don't be like your husband

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless you’re friends with her, we don’t have any proof that her ex was difficult legally. I would think it would have been included in her book if that were the case. Seems to me he was pretty happy to get rid of her, and based on the timing she shared it sounds like a fairly quick divorce.

The fact he was holding her to the prenup, fighting over the club, etc were mentioned in the book.

You don’t know to what extent. Holding her to the prenup could have been one single comment. We only have one side to the story.