Belle Burden’s “Strangers”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wrote this in the other thread:

Key excerpt below; it also sounds like he didn’t touch her trust funds, which are valued way more than she let on, according to the article:

In the settlement, in addition to letting go of his half of the properties, Davis gave his ex-wife three million dollars out of an investment he had made in wambco. Burden kept the key to the private Black Point Beach, on Martha’s Vineyard, which Davis purchased for her birthday in 2016, and which was most recently valued at more than four hundred thousand dollars. He also agreed to pay Burden fifty thousand dollars per month in baseline child support until their youngest child—now eighteen—turns twenty-two. This six-hundred-thousand-dollar annual tally does not include a raft of additional itemized expenses for each child until he or she reaches age twenty-two, including private-school tuition and associated school fees, tutoring and test prep, summer camps, extracurricular activities, transportation costs, health insurance, and medical, dental, and orthodontic expenses.

What a tragic financial hardship, having to pay expenses for your own children.

No one is claiming that. We are claiming that it’s hardly financial insecurity when you’re receiving 500k a year in child support!

This, thank you. And through age 22.

[Anonymous]

Whatever the financial shenanigans in this sordid divorce drama, a man who chooses to cut ties with his minor children deserves to be called out for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wrote this in the other thread:

Key excerpt below; it also sounds like he didn’t touch her trust funds, which are valued way more than she let on, according to the article:

In the settlement, in addition to letting go of his half of the properties, Davis gave his ex-wife three million dollars out of an investment he had made in wambco. Burden kept the key to the private Black Point Beach, on Martha’s Vineyard, which Davis purchased for her birthday in 2016, and which was most recently valued at more than four hundred thousand dollars. He also agreed to pay Burden fifty thousand dollars per month in baseline child support until their youngest child—now eighteen—turns twenty-two. This six-hundred-thousand-dollar annual tally does not include a raft of additional itemized expenses for each child until he or she reaches age twenty-two, including private-school tuition and associated school fees, tutoring and test prep, summer camps, extracurricular activities, transportation costs, health insurance, and medical, dental, and orthodontic expenses.

What a tragic financial hardship, having to pay expenses for your own children.

What expenses will Belle pay for her children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So Belle's actual naivete was not just the marriage but the belief that nobody would tip off the New Yorker about just how rich she actually is and was the whole time. I'm glad the New Yorker had the guts to publish this.

This is what I think kind of happened. It started out as a small, specific “Modern Love” essay, but as it got attention the white lies and hidden facts got away from her and she assumed her version would stay contained. It wasn’t dishonest per sea - just contained until it wasn’t.

[Anonymous]

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.

lol. I’m with you. Her writing was atrocious. Folks who claim this was well written are the same folks who loved the Notebook, which up until this book, was the worst writing I’ve trudged through since middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wrote this in the other thread:

Key excerpt below; it also sounds like he didn’t touch her trust funds, which are valued way more than she let on, according to the article:

In the settlement, in addition to letting go of his half of the properties, Davis gave his ex-wife three million dollars out of an investment he had made in wambco. Burden kept the key to the private Black Point Beach, on Martha’s Vineyard, which Davis purchased for her birthday in 2016, and which was most recently valued at more than four hundred thousand dollars. He also agreed to pay Burden fifty thousand dollars per month in baseline child support until their youngest child—now eighteen—turns twenty-two. This six-hundred-thousand-dollar annual tally does not include a raft of additional itemized expenses for each child until he or she reaches age twenty-two, including private-school tuition and associated school fees, tutoring and test prep, summer camps, extracurricular activities, transportation costs, health insurance, and medical, dental, and orthodontic expenses.

What a tragic financial hardship, having to pay expenses for your own children.

What expenses will Belle pay for her children?

Why don’t you ask her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wrote this in the other thread:

Key excerpt below; it also sounds like he didn’t touch her trust funds, which are valued way more than she let on, according to the article:

In the settlement, in addition to letting go of his half of the properties, Davis gave his ex-wife three million dollars out of an investment he had made in wambco. Burden kept the key to the private Black Point Beach, on Martha’s Vineyard, which Davis purchased for her birthday in 2016, and which was most recently valued at more than four hundred thousand dollars. He also agreed to pay Burden fifty thousand dollars per month in baseline child support until their youngest child—now eighteen—turns twenty-two. This six-hundred-thousand-dollar annual tally does not include a raft of additional itemized expenses for each child until he or she reaches age twenty-two, including private-school tuition and associated school fees, tutoring and test prep, summer camps, extracurricular activities, transportation costs, health insurance, and medical, dental, and orthodontic expenses.

What a tragic financial hardship, having to pay expenses for your own children.

No one is claiming that. We are claiming that it’s hardly financial insecurity when you’re receiving 500k a year in child support!

Which has been judged an acceptable level for their lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

It’s obvious the New Yorker article was planted by her ex husband and his PR team. Masterful rebuttal of her smear campaign against him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s obvious the New Yorker article was planted by her ex husband and his PR team. Masterful rebuttal of her smear campaign against him.

It’s not gaining much traction though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s obvious the New Yorker article was planted by her ex husband and his PR team. Masterful rebuttal of her smear campaign against him.

It’s not gaining much traction though.

Because even if you try to unfairly take half of your spouse's family money, and she remains rich, it's still a scummy thing to do when the cheating spouse has kept all his income during the life of a 20 year marriage.

And he's always going to be the ultimate pig for abandoning his 3 kids without a backwards glance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s obvious the New Yorker article was planted by her ex husband and his PR team. Masterful rebuttal of her smear campaign against him.

It’s not gaining much traction though.

Because even if you try to unfairly take half of your spouse's family money, and she remains rich, it's still a scummy thing to do when the cheating spouse has kept all his income during the life of a 20 year marriage.

And he's always going to be the ultimate pig for abandoning his 3 kids without a backwards glance.

She signed the prenup with her eyes wide open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s obvious the New Yorker article was planted by her ex husband and his PR team. Masterful rebuttal of her smear campaign against him.

I don't think there's any way he comes off looking good.

There's a weird emotional void in the original essay that has a credibility of its own. It doesn't matter if Belle kept the private beach key. He checked out and abandoned his kids. And interfered in a colleague's marriage as well.

It's just an eloquent story about FAFO. If it becomes more two-sided, that's still the plot line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s obvious the New Yorker article was planted by her ex husband and his PR team. Masterful rebuttal of her smear campaign against him.

It’s not gaining much traction though.

Because even if you try to unfairly take half of your spouse's family money, and she remains rich, it's still a scummy thing to do when the cheating spouse has kept all his income during the life of a 20 year marriage.

And he's always going to be the ultimate pig for abandoning his 3 kids without a backwards glance.

She signed the prenup with her eyes wide open.

Eyes open but clouded with love. Most people can relate to someone making a mistake of signing on the dotted line when you trust that the content is fine, and then learning later than it is not.

[Anonymous]

I don't think her ex to be honest looks a whole lot better after the New Yorker article. His focus on review of the book before publication and with the New Yorker article still remains financial. This precedes over a detail like not having a bedroom for his children at his place.

What happened in childhood of being in the proximity of money but not necessarily having it really painted the narrative of his life.

[Anonymous]

She is an ultra rich person from NYC with the prospect of not having enough $$ to buy out her STBX of the family home (presumably she wanted the kids to be able to stay in the family home). I do get why she felt financially insecure (in her own context--not in mine, or most other people's).

I guess the rest of us just need to adjust down to our own financial situations to appreciate the lesson.