Belle Burden’s “Strangers”

[Anonymous]

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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.

You realize she kept all her income, right?

You don't seem to have read her book, if you don't realize she basically had no income for 20 years because she stayed home raising their 3 kids (despite having equally strong academic credentials as her spouse.) Do you not realize that this was unrenumerated labor she provided to their children?

IT’s not just unrenumerated labor she provided to her children, it’s unrenumerated labor she provided to him which he was then able to monetize for his career success - keeping all the money he earned (part of which was due to her unrenumerated labor) for himself.

She kept all her money to herself! Per the prenup.

You can keep saying that, but those of us who know how to read know it's not true. Just because people are rich doesn't mean that they can't be victims of husbands who financially abuse them.

She did not keep all her money to herself. She put most of two trust funds (in her name only) into real estate then titled in both her and her husband's names. So, as soon as she did that, her money was not in her name and he could expect to get half of the house's value in divorce, especially if he paid any of his income toward bills on the house, which she acknowledged he did. The inheritance became "commingled" and thus marital property.

Her lawyer told her not to do it. It's unclear to me why she did it, except for cultural reasons -- that's the way marriage worked. He, however, never titled any of his assets or income in her name, and was not transparent with her about his income or savings or prospective partnership timeline. There are reasons to want to have a husband be able to stay in a house with kids after your untimely death, but there are other ways to do it rather than outright titling the house together. Put the house in a trust controlled by Belle or her family. Give the husband a right to live in the house until the kids are 18 or 21 or 25, and then the house is sold and the proceeds are held in trust for the kids. Or have a contract which states what part of the increase of value of the house is apportioned to Belle or her husband based on when and how much each put into the house. It sounds like she didn't have enough guaranteed income to pay for the entire mortgage of both houses and still be able to support their lifestyle. This is a problem that many couples experience after divorce - not being able to support the joint house and same lifestyle, albeit most people are not at this high an income bracket. Because he ended up becoming a partner (in part due to her SAHM life and her family pedigree), he had a future income potential that she did not, so I can understand why she didn't believe it would be prudent to keep both houses if he insisted on taking half of each.

I find it frustrating that articles incorrectly say she is worth $60 million. Something like 2/3 or more of that amount is tied up in a life estate for her stepmom. It could be decades before she inherits anything from that and there is no certainty of the worth over time. Meanwhile, the issue is can she support the lifestyle at the time of divorce?

I'm in a similar situation, although not at that high an income bracket. I ended my marriage due to my ex-husband's serial infidelity. He chose to walk away without parenting our two children, and he chose to pay minimal support because the law won't force him to pay for college or any extras and because somehow he believes that because my parents are wealthy I am wealthy even though it is obvious I am not. I may inherit a substantial sum in a day or decades, or I may not, and meanwhile he impoverishes me by making me the full-time parent and making me pay for all extras and college. Having gone SAHM due to his extensive work travel schedule, there is no way I can earn enough to support my kids without his equal contribution. He also gets away with it because I kept the secret of our divorce, telling only my parents, siblings and a few friends why we were separating.

At the core, the men who do this are sociopaths - using other people for their own advancement. They get away with it as long as they can manipulate people and still maintain their public face. That is why what Burden has done is so extraordinary -- to break the silence on this sociopathy by telling the truth of the infidelity and abandonment in a way that doesn't make her the "crazy one" is really a rarity. And the book is successful because many women recognize themselves in it -- having husbands who walk away from the parenting responsibility and full and equal financial responsibility for the kids in proportion to their income.

The misleading part of her book is how she presents the properties as her trusts having paid for them in almost entirety. Except there were decent sized mortgages on both properties. He paid for those mortgages and upkeep for decades. The “small mortgage” part was misleading as I assumed the mortgage was say $1 mm and the purchase price $9 mm.

If I were to marry someone with tens to hundreds of millions and they came to me with a prenup to protect that money, I’d absolutely want to keep my own earnings separate. He would have been foolish had he signed over 50% of his future earnings to her. Doesn’t at all seem unreasonable to me that he protected his money in the same manner she did his.

The irony is that he would have happily married without a prenup, which she forced on him, as she was obligated to in her family. She would have done much better without a prenup in almost every U.S. state, except I believe CT and MA. I think those are the only states that consider her kind of trust/inheritance assets as part of the marital pot. But even in CT and MA a lot of the money that comes to her when her stepmother dies would probably be irrelevant to the asset division imposed by a judge in a trial.

This is not true. She commingled her inheritance by paying for the houses with it. That would have been 50/50 in most states. Only the parts of the trusts that came to her later and stayed separate are protected under state law. She would have been financially wiser to put the houses in a trust that details what percent he would put into the house and what percent he would get out, while maintaining the houses in the trust for the kids or to have some kind of separate pre-nuptial contract about the houses and any equity from them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You realize she kept all her income, right?

You don't seem to have read her book, if you don't realize she basically had no income for 20 years because she stayed home raising their 3 kids (despite having equally strong academic credentials as her spouse.) Do you not realize that this was unrenumerated labor she provided to their children?

IT’s not just unrenumerated labor she provided to her children, it’s unrenumerated labor she provided to him which he was then able to monetize for his career success - keeping all the money he earned (part of which was due to her unrenumerated labor) for himself.

She kept all her money to herself! Per the prenup.

You can keep saying that, but those of us who know how to read know it's not true. Just because people are rich doesn't mean that they can't be victims of husbands who financially abuse them.

She did not keep all her money to herself. She put most of two trust funds (in her name only) into real estate then titled in both her and her husband's names. So, as soon as she did that, her money was not in her name and he could expect to get half of the house's value in divorce, especially if he paid any of his income toward bills on the house, which she acknowledged he did. The inheritance became "commingled" and thus marital property.

Her lawyer told her not to do it. It's unclear to me why she did it, except for cultural reasons -- that's the way marriage worked. He, however, never titled any of his assets or income in her name, and was not transparent with her about his income or savings or prospective partnership timeline. There are reasons to want to have a husband be able to stay in a house with kids after your untimely death, but there are other ways to do it rather than outright titling the house together. Put the house in a trust controlled by Belle or her family. Give the husband a right to live in the house until the kids are 18 or 21 or 25, and then the house is sold and the proceeds are held in trust for the kids. Or have a contract which states what part of the increase of value of the house is apportioned to Belle or her husband based on when and how much each put into the house. It sounds like she didn't have enough guaranteed income to pay for the entire mortgage of both houses and still be able to support their lifestyle. This is a problem that many couples experience after divorce - not being able to support the joint house and same lifestyle, albeit most people are not at this high an income bracket. Because he ended up becoming a partner (in part due to her SAHM life and her family pedigree), he had a future income potential that she did not, so I can understand why she didn't believe it would be prudent to keep both houses if he insisted on taking half of each.

I find it frustrating that articles incorrectly say she is worth $60 million. Something like 2/3 or more of that amount is tied up in a life estate for her stepmom. It could be decades before she inherits anything from that and there is no certainty of the worth over time. Meanwhile, the issue is can she support the lifestyle at the time of divorce?

I'm in a similar situation, although not at that high an income bracket. I ended my marriage due to my ex-husband's serial infidelity. He chose to walk away without parenting our two children, and he chose to pay minimal support because the law won't force him to pay for college or any extras and because somehow he believes that because my parents are wealthy I am wealthy even though it is obvious I am not. I may inherit a substantial sum in a day or decades, or I may not, and meanwhile he impoverishes me by making me the full-time parent and making me pay for all extras and college. Having gone SAHM due to his extensive work travel schedule, there is no way I can earn enough to support my kids without his equal contribution. He also gets away with it because I kept the secret of our divorce, telling only my parents, siblings and a few friends why we were separating.

At the core, the men who do this are sociopaths - using other people for their own advancement. They get away with it as long as they can manipulate people and still maintain their public face. That is why what Burden has done is so extraordinary -- to break the silence on this sociopathy by telling the truth of the infidelity and abandonment in a way that doesn't make her the "crazy one" is really a rarity. And the book is successful because many women recognize themselves in it -- having husbands who walk away from the parenting responsibility and full and equal financial responsibility for the kids in proportion to their income.

You impoverished yourself by quitting your job. No one made you do this. I get that at the time it made sense and you felt like you needed to and you could, but you really did not have to do this. There are millions of women who go to work daily with husbands who travel extensively.

You go on saying he’s a sociopath and impoverishing you, but nowhere do you take any blame or suggest you had anything to do with any of this. You did: you quit your job!

DP. I’m going to guess that 99% of the women who work daily with husbands who travel extensively either a) don’t have children or b) feel that their family benefits from their income.
At some point, if your family truly does not really benefit from your income, you feel guilty for going to work every day. Especially if you are essentially the only present parent in the home.

Your post reeks of sexism that holds women back. Just because your DH does well doesn’t mean you don’t need to succeed. Unless you’re independently wealthy you need to earn an income and prioritize yourself.

In theory the bold is nice, but in practice we do not have the societal structure for it. No affordable child care. Inadequate medical insurance. Very little mandated child support. Workplaces that still won't hire women with kids or will fire them quickly. (I was actually asked in a BigLaw interview about my "available hours" as a subtle way of trying to get at whether I, as an older law student, had family obligations. Comparing notes afterward, none of the men were asked the same.) And, as Burden's book makes the point -- men who are willing and able to simply walk away from their responsibilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What's the name of the L Durell novel, please?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You realize she kept all her income, right?

You don't seem to have read her book, if you don't realize she basically had no income for 20 years because she stayed home raising their 3 kids (despite having equally strong academic credentials as her spouse.) Do you not realize that this was unrenumerated labor she provided to their children?

IT’s not just unrenumerated labor she provided to her children, it’s unrenumerated labor she provided to him which he was then able to monetize for his career success - keeping all the money he earned (part of which was due to her unrenumerated labor) for himself.

She kept all her money to herself! Per the prenup.

You can keep saying that, but those of us who know how to read know it's not true. Just because people are rich doesn't mean that they can't be victims of husbands who financially abuse them.

She did not keep all her money to herself. She put most of two trust funds (in her name only) into real estate then titled in both her and her husband's names. So, as soon as she did that, her money was not in her name and he could expect to get half of the house's value in divorce, especially if he paid any of his income toward bills on the house, which she acknowledged he did. The inheritance became "commingled" and thus marital property.

Her lawyer told her not to do it. It's unclear to me why she did it, except for cultural reasons -- that's the way marriage worked. He, however, never titled any of his assets or income in her name, and was not transparent with her about his income or savings or prospective partnership timeline. There are reasons to want to have a husband be able to stay in a house with kids after your untimely death, but there are other ways to do it rather than outright titling the house together. Put the house in a trust controlled by Belle or her family. Give the husband a right to live in the house until the kids are 18 or 21 or 25, and then the house is sold and the proceeds are held in trust for the kids. Or have a contract which states what part of the increase of value of the house is apportioned to Belle or her husband based on when and how much each put into the house. It sounds like she didn't have enough guaranteed income to pay for the entire mortgage of both houses and still be able to support their lifestyle. This is a problem that many couples experience after divorce - not being able to support the joint house and same lifestyle, albeit most people are not at this high an income bracket. Because he ended up becoming a partner (in part due to her SAHM life and her family pedigree), he had a future income potential that she did not, so I can understand why she didn't believe it would be prudent to keep both houses if he insisted on taking half of each.

I find it frustrating that articles incorrectly say she is worth $60 million. Something like 2/3 or more of that amount is tied up in a life estate for her stepmom. It could be decades before she inherits anything from that and there is no certainty of the worth over time. Meanwhile, the issue is can she support the lifestyle at the time of divorce?

I'm in a similar situation, although not at that high an income bracket. I ended my marriage due to my ex-husband's serial infidelity. He chose to walk away without parenting our two children, and he chose to pay minimal support because the law won't force him to pay for college or any extras and because somehow he believes that because my parents are wealthy I am wealthy even though it is obvious I am not. I may inherit a substantial sum in a day or decades, or I may not, and meanwhile he impoverishes me by making me the full-time parent and making me pay for all extras and college. Having gone SAHM due to his extensive work travel schedule, there is no way I can earn enough to support my kids without his equal contribution. He also gets away with it because I kept the secret of our divorce, telling only my parents, siblings and a few friends why we were separating.

At the core, the men who do this are sociopaths - using other people for their own advancement. They get away with it as long as they can manipulate people and still maintain their public face. That is why what Burden has done is so extraordinary -- to break the silence on this sociopathy by telling the truth of the infidelity and abandonment in a way that doesn't make her the "crazy one" is really a rarity. And the book is successful because many women recognize themselves in it -- having husbands who walk away from the parenting responsibility and full and equal financial responsibility for the kids in proportion to their income.

You impoverished yourself by quitting your job. No one made you do this. I get that at the time it made sense and you felt like you needed to and you could, but you really did not have to do this. There are millions of women who go to work daily with husbands who travel extensively.

You go on saying he’s a sociopath and impoverishing you, but nowhere do you take any blame or suggest you had anything to do with any of this. You did: you quit your job!

DP. I’m going to guess that 99% of the women who work daily with husbands who travel extensively either a) don’t have children or b) feel that their family benefits from their income.
At some point, if your family truly does not really benefit from your income, you feel guilty for going to work every day. Especially if you are essentially the only present parent in the home.

Your post reeks of sexism that holds women back. Just because your DH does well doesn’t mean you don’t need to succeed. Unless you’re independently wealthy you need to earn an income and prioritize yourself.

In theory the bold is nice, but in practice we do not have the societal structure for it. No affordable child care. Inadequate medical insurance. Very little mandated child support. Workplaces that still won't hire women with kids or will fire them quickly. (I was actually asked in a BigLaw interview about my "available hours" as a subtle way of trying to get at whether I, as an older law student, had family obligations. Comparing notes afterward, none of the men were asked the same.) And, as Burden's book makes the point -- men who are willing and able to simply walk away from their responsibilities.

Sure it can be better, but Americans have some of the highest disposable income rates in the world.

This is mostly an excuse women make to not work. There are millions of American women with kids who go to work daily.

Women in other countries receive these benefits because it’s incredibly expensive and they don’t receive healthcare and retirement if they don’t work. Their structure mandates a dual income household.

To be unemployed for decades is a choice. It’s not a smart one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You realize she kept all her income, right?

You don't seem to have read her book, if you don't realize she basically had no income for 20 years because she stayed home raising their 3 kids (despite having equally strong academic credentials as her spouse.) Do you not realize that this was unrenumerated labor she provided to their children?

IT’s not just unrenumerated labor she provided to her children, it’s unrenumerated labor she provided to him which he was then able to monetize for his career success - keeping all the money he earned (part of which was due to her unrenumerated labor) for himself.

She kept all her money to herself! Per the prenup.

You can keep saying that, but those of us who know how to read know it's not true. Just because people are rich doesn't mean that they can't be victims of husbands who financially abuse them.

She did not keep all her money to herself. She put most of two trust funds (in her name only) into real estate then titled in both her and her husband's names. So, as soon as she did that, her money was not in her name and he could expect to get half of the house's value in divorce, especially if he paid any of his income toward bills on the house, which she acknowledged he did. The inheritance became "commingled" and thus marital property.

Her lawyer told her not to do it. It's unclear to me why she did it, except for cultural reasons -- that's the way marriage worked. He, however, never titled any of his assets or income in her name, and was not transparent with her about his income or savings or prospective partnership timeline. There are reasons to want to have a husband be able to stay in a house with kids after your untimely death, but there are other ways to do it rather than outright titling the house together. Put the house in a trust controlled by Belle or her family. Give the husband a right to live in the house until the kids are 18 or 21 or 25, and then the house is sold and the proceeds are held in trust for the kids. Or have a contract which states what part of the increase of value of the house is apportioned to Belle or her husband based on when and how much each put into the house. It sounds like she didn't have enough guaranteed income to pay for the entire mortgage of both houses and still be able to support their lifestyle. This is a problem that many couples experience after divorce - not being able to support the joint house and same lifestyle, albeit most people are not at this high an income bracket. Because he ended up becoming a partner (in part due to her SAHM life and her family pedigree), he had a future income potential that she did not, so I can understand why she didn't believe it would be prudent to keep both houses if he insisted on taking half of each.

I find it frustrating that articles incorrectly say she is worth $60 million. Something like 2/3 or more of that amount is tied up in a life estate for her stepmom. It could be decades before she inherits anything from that and there is no certainty of the worth over time. Meanwhile, the issue is can she support the lifestyle at the time of divorce?

I'm in a similar situation, although not at that high an income bracket. I ended my marriage due to my ex-husband's serial infidelity. He chose to walk away without parenting our two children, and he chose to pay minimal support because the law won't force him to pay for college or any extras and because somehow he believes that because my parents are wealthy I am wealthy even though it is obvious I am not. I may inherit a substantial sum in a day or decades, or I may not, and meanwhile he impoverishes me by making me the full-time parent and making me pay for all extras and college. Having gone SAHM due to his extensive work travel schedule, there is no way I can earn enough to support my kids without his equal contribution. He also gets away with it because I kept the secret of our divorce, telling only my parents, siblings and a few friends why we were separating.

At the core, the men who do this are sociopaths - using other people for their own advancement. They get away with it as long as they can manipulate people and still maintain their public face. That is why what Burden has done is so extraordinary -- to break the silence on this sociopathy by telling the truth of the infidelity and abandonment in a way that doesn't make her the "crazy one" is really a rarity. And the book is successful because many women recognize themselves in it -- having husbands who walk away from the parenting responsibility and full and equal financial responsibility for the kids in proportion to their income.

You impoverished yourself by quitting your job. No one made you do this. I get that at the time it made sense and you felt like you needed to and you could, but you really did not have to do this. There are millions of women who go to work daily with husbands who travel extensively.

You go on saying he’s a sociopath and impoverishing you, but nowhere do you take any blame or suggest you had anything to do with any of this. You did: you quit your job!

DP. I’m going to guess that 99% of the women who work daily with husbands who travel extensively either a) don’t have children or b) feel that their family benefits from their income.
At some point, if your family truly does not really benefit from your income, you feel guilty for going to work every day. Especially if you are essentially the only present parent in the home.

Your post reeks of sexism that holds women back. Just because your DH does well doesn’t mean you don’t need to succeed. Unless you’re independently wealthy you need to earn an income and prioritize yourself.

In theory the bold is nice, but in practice we do not have the societal structure for it. No affordable child care. Inadequate medical insurance. Very little mandated child support. Workplaces that still won't hire women with kids or will fire them quickly. (I was actually asked in a BigLaw interview about my "available hours" as a subtle way of trying to get at whether I, as an older law student, had family obligations. Comparing notes afterward, none of the men were asked the same.) And, as Burden's book makes the point -- men who are willing and able to simply walk away from their responsibilities.

There’s a lot of space between big law and no job.

I don’t understand why type A women do this. They can’t succeed at the most stressful, demanding job so they decide….they won’t work at all?


The

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You realize she kept all her income, right?

You don't seem to have read her book, if you don't realize she basically had no income for 20 years because she stayed home raising their 3 kids (despite having equally strong academic credentials as her spouse.) Do you not realize that this was unrenumerated labor she provided to their children?

IT’s not just unrenumerated labor she provided to her children, it’s unrenumerated labor she provided to him which he was then able to monetize for his career success - keeping all the money he earned (part of which was due to her unrenumerated labor) for himself.

She kept all her money to herself! Per the prenup.

You can keep saying that, but those of us who know how to read know it's not true. Just because people are rich doesn't mean that they can't be victims of husbands who financially abuse them.

She did not keep all her money to herself. She put most of two trust funds (in her name only) into real estate then titled in both her and her husband's names. So, as soon as she did that, her money was not in her name and he could expect to get half of the house's value in divorce, especially if he paid any of his income toward bills on the house, which she acknowledged he did. The inheritance became "commingled" and thus marital property.

Her lawyer told her not to do it. It's unclear to me why she did it, except for cultural reasons -- that's the way marriage worked. He, however, never titled any of his assets or income in her name, and was not transparent with her about his income or savings or prospective partnership timeline. There are reasons to want to have a husband be able to stay in a house with kids after your untimely death, but there are other ways to do it rather than outright titling the house together. Put the house in a trust controlled by Belle or her family. Give the husband a right to live in the house until the kids are 18 or 21 or 25, and then the house is sold and the proceeds are held in trust for the kids. Or have a contract which states what part of the increase of value of the house is apportioned to Belle or her husband based on when and how much each put into the house. It sounds like she didn't have enough guaranteed income to pay for the entire mortgage of both houses and still be able to support their lifestyle. This is a problem that many couples experience after divorce - not being able to support the joint house and same lifestyle, albeit most people are not at this high an income bracket. Because he ended up becoming a partner (in part due to her SAHM life and her family pedigree), he had a future income potential that she did not, so I can understand why she didn't believe it would be prudent to keep both houses if he insisted on taking half of each.

I find it frustrating that articles incorrectly say she is worth $60 million. Something like 2/3 or more of that amount is tied up in a life estate for her stepmom. It could be decades before she inherits anything from that and there is no certainty of the worth over time. Meanwhile, the issue is can she support the lifestyle at the time of divorce?

I'm in a similar situation, although not at that high an income bracket. I ended my marriage due to my ex-husband's serial infidelity. He chose to walk away without parenting our two children, and he chose to pay minimal support because the law won't force him to pay for college or any extras and because somehow he believes that because my parents are wealthy I am wealthy even though it is obvious I am not. I may inherit a substantial sum in a day or decades, or I may not, and meanwhile he impoverishes me by making me the full-time parent and making me pay for all extras and college. Having gone SAHM due to his extensive work travel schedule, there is no way I can earn enough to support my kids without his equal contribution. He also gets away with it because I kept the secret of our divorce, telling only my parents, siblings and a few friends why we were separating.

At the core, the men who do this are sociopaths - using other people for their own advancement. They get away with it as long as they can manipulate people and still maintain their public face. That is why what Burden has done is so extraordinary -- to break the silence on this sociopathy by telling the truth of the infidelity and abandonment in a way that doesn't make her the "crazy one" is really a rarity. And the book is successful because many women recognize themselves in it -- having husbands who walk away from the parenting responsibility and full and equal financial responsibility for the kids in proportion to their income.

The misleading part of her book is how she presents the properties as her trusts having paid for them in almost entirety. Except there were decent sized mortgages on both properties. He paid for those mortgages and upkeep for decades. The “small mortgage” part was misleading as I assumed the mortgage was say $1 mm and the purchase price $9 mm.

If I were to marry someone with tens to hundreds of millions and they came to me with a prenup to protect that money, I’d absolutely want to keep my own earnings separate. He would have been foolish had he signed over 50% of his future earnings to her. Doesn’t at all seem unreasonable to me that he protected his money in the same manner she did his.

Correction - they paid the mortgages. She says they split expenses 50/50 (even though she had less income from him even with the inheritance). Financially, she put more money into the homes than he did, but yet he was going to get 50/50 equity. She doesn't have hundreds of millions. She had an interest in a life estate for her stepmom. That life estate was sizable (45 million) but she has no access to it until the stepmom is dead. Who knows how much will be left in it, and she will have to split it with sibling and pay estate tax. She has a $6 million interest in a family holding company, WAMBCO, but it's not like that's a publicly tradable asset that she can tap at any time. Family structures like that don't have to disclose, and so no one has any idea of the terms of the trust. It's very common that the parents are able to take out a small portion of the trust. Depending on how it's invested that could be as little as 3% a year, which is $180,000 -- not starving territory, but definitely not enough to hold onto two multimillion dollar houses or buy out your spouse. Yes, she had some "income" - payment ($300K) for work selling assets in a trust, but that kind of payout is often not predictable. Someone probably had to die or decide to downsize to sell that asset. One year she had 800,000 in income including 190,000 from the sale of her mom's home in the catskills. So that means, maybe $600,000 K of income that may reflect a more steady income stream (or not). Still not enough to buy your husband out of 2 multimillion dollar properties. Yes, she had a Vanguard account and a share in the family trust together totaling 10 million. No way to know how much of that was actually liquid. The asset value isn't related to what she could actually get access to.

Other than that she had two trusts that the New Yorker said she tapped to buy the 2 homes - a 4 million dollar apartment with a 1 million dollar mortgage. That home later sold for 12 million; a 50/50 split would have given her husband 6 million although by percentage invested, she put down 75% and paid half of the remaining 1/4 value by mortgage. So by investment percentage she should have gotten 87.5% of the value of the home at sale -- or 10.5 million (instead of 6). She put 2.4 million toward a house with a 3 million dollar mortgage. She paid 44.4% down on the other house and paid half of the remaining mortgage, so she had an interest in 77% of the house valued at 7.7 million subsequently. That share would have been 5.9 million but at 50/50, she would have only gotten 3.85 million. Essentially, a 50/50 split would have meant that he essentially was going to take 7 million in appreciation for which he did not put down the proportional amount of capital. He was a finance guy. He knew exactly what he was trying to get away with, and probably the only thing that made him not do it in the end was the knowledge that she hadn't kept her mouth shut about their split, so he was no longer confident that she would keep her mouth shut about being financially screwed by him. He was able to put his money to work during the marriage, while hers was tied up in the real estate they lived in. He was able to pay a very small proportion of the bills in the houses he lived in, which enabled him to put his money to work in investments solely in his name. And, he got access to a social circle that benefited his career as well as, ultimately, a stay at home wife, which also benefited his career.

It's interesting to me how people don't do the math on the houses. It's also interesting to me that the article scrutinizes Belle's finances but only gives a dollar amount to her husband's salary at the time of signing the divorce ($200K of base salary only - not listing a bonus which for a hedge fund is usually millions more) and a dollar amount to how much he will pay each year for the kids ($600K - 3/4 of one year's income for her). The article never mentions his full salary at the time of the divorce, even though the author says she has the divorce agreement. (As a hedge fund guy who is paying $600K to the kids, it's got to be in the multimillions). Also the article consistently conflates asset value and having your name on a trust with the idea that she could get full access to the total amount. Wild how his finances totally escaped scrutiny in this situation.

You seem very invested. I doubt that you would be posting a multiparagraph reaction if a SAHM received 50/50 from the proceeds of the sale of the family home while investing $0 of her foo’s funds or her own earnings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You realize she kept all her income, right?

You don't seem to have read her book, if you don't realize she basically had no income for 20 years because she stayed home raising their 3 kids (despite having equally strong academic credentials as her spouse.) Do you not realize that this was unrenumerated labor she provided to their children?

IT’s not just unrenumerated labor she provided to her children, it’s unrenumerated labor she provided to him which he was then able to monetize for his career success - keeping all the money he earned (part of which was due to her unrenumerated labor) for himself.

She kept all her money to herself! Per the prenup.

You can keep saying that, but those of us who know how to read know it's not true. Just because people are rich doesn't mean that they can't be victims of husbands who financially abuse them.

She did not keep all her money to herself. She put most of two trust funds (in her name only) into real estate then titled in both her and her husband's names. So, as soon as she did that, her money was not in her name and he could expect to get half of the house's value in divorce, especially if he paid any of his income toward bills on the house, which she acknowledged he did. The inheritance became "commingled" and thus marital property.

Her lawyer told her not to do it. It's unclear to me why she did it, except for cultural reasons -- that's the way marriage worked. He, however, never titled any of his assets or income in her name, and was not transparent with her about his income or savings or prospective partnership timeline. There are reasons to want to have a husband be able to stay in a house with kids after your untimely death, but there are other ways to do it rather than outright titling the house together. Put the house in a trust controlled by Belle or her family. Give the husband a right to live in the house until the kids are 18 or 21 or 25, and then the house is sold and the proceeds are held in trust for the kids. Or have a contract which states what part of the increase of value of the house is apportioned to Belle or her husband based on when and how much each put into the house. It sounds like she didn't have enough guaranteed income to pay for the entire mortgage of both houses and still be able to support their lifestyle. This is a problem that many couples experience after divorce - not being able to support the joint house and same lifestyle, albeit most people are not at this high an income bracket. Because he ended up becoming a partner (in part due to her SAHM life and her family pedigree), he had a future income potential that she did not, so I can understand why she didn't believe it would be prudent to keep both houses if he insisted on taking half of each.

I find it frustrating that articles incorrectly say she is worth $60 million. Something like 2/3 or more of that amount is tied up in a life estate for her stepmom. It could be decades before she inherits anything from that and there is no certainty of the worth over time. Meanwhile, the issue is can she support the lifestyle at the time of divorce?

I'm in a similar situation, although not at that high an income bracket. I ended my marriage due to my ex-husband's serial infidelity. He chose to walk away without parenting our two children, and he chose to pay minimal support because the law won't force him to pay for college or any extras and because somehow he believes that because my parents are wealthy I am wealthy even though it is obvious I am not. I may inherit a substantial sum in a day or decades, or I may not, and meanwhile he impoverishes me by making me the full-time parent and making me pay for all extras and college. Having gone SAHM due to his extensive work travel schedule, there is no way I can earn enough to support my kids without his equal contribution. He also gets away with it because I kept the secret of our divorce, telling only my parents, siblings and a few friends why we were separating.

At the core, the men who do this are sociopaths - using other people for their own advancement. They get away with it as long as they can manipulate people and still maintain their public face. That is why what Burden has done is so extraordinary -- to break the silence on this sociopathy by telling the truth of the infidelity and abandonment in a way that doesn't make her the "crazy one" is really a rarity. And the book is successful because many women recognize themselves in it -- having husbands who walk away from the parenting responsibility and full and equal financial responsibility for the kids in proportion to their income.

The misleading part of her book is how she presents the properties as her trusts having paid for them in almost entirety. Except there were decent sized mortgages on both properties. He paid for those mortgages and upkeep for decades. The “small mortgage” part was misleading as I assumed the mortgage was say $1 mm and the purchase price $9 mm.

If I were to marry someone with tens to hundreds of millions and they came to me with a prenup to protect that money, I’d absolutely want to keep my own earnings separate. He would have been foolish had he signed over 50% of his future earnings to her. Doesn’t at all seem unreasonable to me that he protected his money in the same manner she did his.

The irony is that he would have happily married without a prenup, which she forced on him, as she was obligated to in her family. She would have done much better without a prenup in almost every U.S. state, except I believe CT and MA. I think those are the only states that consider her kind of trust/inheritance assets as part of the marital pot. But even in CT and MA a lot of the money that comes to her when her stepmother dies would probably be irrelevant to the asset division imposed by a judge in a trial.

This is not true. She commingled her inheritance by paying for the houses with it. That would have been 50/50 in most states. Only the parts of the trusts that came to her later and stayed separate are protected under state law. She would have been financially wiser to put the houses in a trust that details what percent he would put into the house and what percent he would get out, while maintaining the houses in the trust for the kids or to have some kind of separate pre-nuptial contract about the houses and any equity from them.

You’re missing my point. She was the one demanding a prenup; he didn’t want one. But she would have been better off with no prenup. Because the bulk of her assets (those in trusts) were largely protected anyway from being considered marital property (until she commingled some of them), except to some degree in Massachusetts and Connecticut. And with no prenup and her long marriage, she would have gotten 50% of the marital estate, which would have included all “his” assets.

The prenup that he was asked to sign basically said “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.” It was a sort of a belt-and-suspenders document to supplement the protection afforded by the trust arrangements. In the case of a divorce, assuming correctly that she would become a SAHM, she could emerge from a long marriage with 10X-20X-30X as much as he. So he demanded that the prenup be changed to a “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours” document.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You realize she kept all her income, right?

You don't seem to have read her book, if you don't realize she basically had no income for 20 years because she stayed home raising their 3 kids (despite having equally strong academic credentials as her spouse.) Do you not realize that this was unrenumerated labor she provided to their children?

IT’s not just unrenumerated labor she provided to her children, it’s unrenumerated labor she provided to him which he was then able to monetize for his career success - keeping all the money he earned (part of which was due to her unrenumerated labor) for himself.

She kept all her money to herself! Per the prenup.

You can keep saying that, but those of us who know how to read know it's not true. Just because people are rich doesn't mean that they can't be victims of husbands who financially abuse them.

She did not keep all her money to herself. She put most of two trust funds (in her name only) into real estate then titled in both her and her husband's names. So, as soon as she did that, her money was not in her name and he could expect to get half of the house's value in divorce, especially if he paid any of his income toward bills on the house, which she acknowledged he did. The inheritance became "commingled" and thus marital property.

Her lawyer told her not to do it. It's unclear to me why she did it, except for cultural reasons -- that's the way marriage worked. He, however, never titled any of his assets or income in her name, and was not transparent with her about his income or savings or prospective partnership timeline. There are reasons to want to have a husband be able to stay in a house with kids after your untimely death, but there are other ways to do it rather than outright titling the house together. Put the house in a trust controlled by Belle or her family. Give the husband a right to live in the house until the kids are 18 or 21 or 25, and then the house is sold and the proceeds are held in trust for the kids. Or have a contract which states what part of the increase of value of the house is apportioned to Belle or her husband based on when and how much each put into the house. It sounds like she didn't have enough guaranteed income to pay for the entire mortgage of both houses and still be able to support their lifestyle. This is a problem that many couples experience after divorce - not being able to support the joint house and same lifestyle, albeit most people are not at this high an income bracket. Because he ended up becoming a partner (in part due to her SAHM life and her family pedigree), he had a future income potential that she did not, so I can understand why she didn't believe it would be prudent to keep both houses if he insisted on taking half of each.

I find it frustrating that articles incorrectly say she is worth $60 million. Something like 2/3 or more of that amount is tied up in a life estate for her stepmom. It could be decades before she inherits anything from that and there is no certainty of the worth over time. Meanwhile, the issue is can she support the lifestyle at the time of divorce?

I'm in a similar situation, although not at that high an income bracket. I ended my marriage due to my ex-husband's serial infidelity. He chose to walk away without parenting our two children, and he chose to pay minimal support because the law won't force him to pay for college or any extras and because somehow he believes that because my parents are wealthy I am wealthy even though it is obvious I am not. I may inherit a substantial sum in a day or decades, or I may not, and meanwhile he impoverishes me by making me the full-time parent and making me pay for all extras and college. Having gone SAHM due to his extensive work travel schedule, there is no way I can earn enough to support my kids without his equal contribution. He also gets away with it because I kept the secret of our divorce, telling only my parents, siblings and a few friends why we were separating.

At the core, the men who do this are sociopaths - using other people for their own advancement. They get away with it as long as they can manipulate people and still maintain their public face. That is why what Burden has done is so extraordinary -- to break the silence on this sociopathy by telling the truth of the infidelity and abandonment in a way that doesn't make her the "crazy one" is really a rarity. And the book is successful because many women recognize themselves in it -- having husbands who walk away from the parenting responsibility and full and equal financial responsibility for the kids in proportion to their income.

The misleading part of her book is how she presents the properties as her trusts having paid for them in almost entirety. Except there were decent sized mortgages on both properties. He paid for those mortgages and upkeep for decades. The “small mortgage” part was misleading as I assumed the mortgage was say $1 mm and the purchase price $9 mm.

If I were to marry someone with tens to hundreds of millions and they came to me with a prenup to protect that money, I’d absolutely want to keep my own earnings separate. He would have been foolish had he signed over 50% of his future earnings to her. Doesn’t at all seem unreasonable to me that he protected his money in the same manner she did his.

The irony is that he would have happily married without a prenup, which she forced on him, as she was obligated to in her family. She would have done much better without a prenup in almost every U.S. state, except I believe CT and MA. I think those are the only states that consider her kind of trust/inheritance assets as part of the marital pot. But even in CT and MA a lot of the money that comes to her when her stepmother dies would probably be irrelevant to the asset division imposed by a judge in a trial.

This is not true. She commingled her inheritance by paying for the houses with it. That would have been 50/50 in most states. Only the parts of the trusts that came to her later and stayed separate are protected under state law. She would have been financially wiser to put the houses in a trust that details what percent he would put into the house and what percent he would get out, while maintaining the houses in the trust for the kids or to have some kind of separate pre-nuptial contract about the houses and any equity from them.

You’re missing my point. She was the one demanding a prenup; he didn’t want one. But she would have been better off with no prenup. Because the bulk of her assets (those in trusts) were largely protected anyway from being considered marital property (until she commingled some of them), except to some degree in Massachusetts and Connecticut. And with no prenup and her long marriage, she would have gotten 50% of the marital estate, which would have included all “his” assets.

The prenup that he was asked to sign basically said “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.” It was a sort of a belt-and-suspenders document to supplement the protection afforded by the trust arrangements. In the case of a divorce, assuming correctly that she would become a SAHM, she could emerge from a long marriage with 10X-20X-30X as much as he. So he demanded that the prenup be changed to a “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours” document.

+100000

It’s perfectly fair that he wanted his earnings to stay separate given she was keeping her money/income separate!

Who in their right mind would fork over 50% of their earnings to someone when they are keeping 100% of theirs and worth tens of millions of dollars?

A lot of her book is projecting. She used him for image and to support a lavish lifestyle where she went from club to club and send kids to boarding schools. Here’s a guy who earned his own money! He didn’t bring significant wealth into the marriage and earned it through hard work. She had the audacity to suggest he used her, when here she is having lived off him for decades and collecting income from family money. Belle has been handed everything in life including admittance to Harvard and she is being told NO for the first time in her life.

The worst is her suggestion her trusts paid for both properties almost entirely. Now we find out they had sizable (large!) mortgages on these properties he paid for over two decades. Of course he was going to at some point suggest he walk away with a stake in those! In what world would someone pay towards two properties for two decades and then walk away with $0?

I can see right through Belle. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You realize she kept all her income, right?

You don't seem to have read her book, if you don't realize she basically had no income for 20 years because she stayed home raising their 3 kids (despite having equally strong academic credentials as her spouse.) Do you not realize that this was unrenumerated labor she provided to their children?

IT’s not just unrenumerated labor she provided to her children, it’s unrenumerated labor she provided to him which he was then able to monetize for his career success - keeping all the money he earned (part of which was due to her unrenumerated labor) for himself.

She kept all her money to herself! Per the prenup.

You can keep saying that, but those of us who know how to read know it's not true. Just because people are rich doesn't mean that they can't be victims of husbands who financially abuse them.

She did not keep all her money to herself. She put most of two trust funds (in her name only) into real estate then titled in both her and her husband's names. So, as soon as she did that, her money was not in her name and he could expect to get half of the house's value in divorce, especially if he paid any of his income toward bills on the house, which she acknowledged he did. The inheritance became "commingled" and thus marital property.

Her lawyer told her not to do it. It's unclear to me why she did it, except for cultural reasons -- that's the way marriage worked. He, however, never titled any of his assets or income in her name, and was not transparent with her about his income or savings or prospective partnership timeline. There are reasons to want to have a husband be able to stay in a house with kids after your untimely death, but there are other ways to do it rather than outright titling the house together. Put the house in a trust controlled by Belle or her family. Give the husband a right to live in the house until the kids are 18 or 21 or 25, and then the house is sold and the proceeds are held in trust for the kids. Or have a contract which states what part of the increase of value of the house is apportioned to Belle or her husband based on when and how much each put into the house. It sounds like she didn't have enough guaranteed income to pay for the entire mortgage of both houses and still be able to support their lifestyle. This is a problem that many couples experience after divorce - not being able to support the joint house and same lifestyle, albeit most people are not at this high an income bracket. Because he ended up becoming a partner (in part due to her SAHM life and her family pedigree), he had a future income potential that she did not, so I can understand why she didn't believe it would be prudent to keep both houses if he insisted on taking half of each.

I find it frustrating that articles incorrectly say she is worth $60 million. Something like 2/3 or more of that amount is tied up in a life estate for her stepmom. It could be decades before she inherits anything from that and there is no certainty of the worth over time. Meanwhile, the issue is can she support the lifestyle at the time of divorce?

I'm in a similar situation, although not at that high an income bracket. I ended my marriage due to my ex-husband's serial infidelity. He chose to walk away without parenting our two children, and he chose to pay minimal support because the law won't force him to pay for college or any extras and because somehow he believes that because my parents are wealthy I am wealthy even though it is obvious I am not. I may inherit a substantial sum in a day or decades, or I may not, and meanwhile he impoverishes me by making me the full-time parent and making me pay for all extras and college. Having gone SAHM due to his extensive work travel schedule, there is no way I can earn enough to support my kids without his equal contribution. He also gets away with it because I kept the secret of our divorce, telling only my parents, siblings and a few friends why we were separating.

At the core, the men who do this are sociopaths - using other people for their own advancement. They get away with it as long as they can manipulate people and still maintain their public face. That is why what Burden has done is so extraordinary -- to break the silence on this sociopathy by telling the truth of the infidelity and abandonment in a way that doesn't make her the "crazy one" is really a rarity. And the book is successful because many women recognize themselves in it -- having husbands who walk away from the parenting responsibility and full and equal financial responsibility for the kids in proportion to their income.

The misleading part of her book is how she presents the properties as her trusts having paid for them in almost entirety. Except there were decent sized mortgages on both properties. He paid for those mortgages and upkeep for decades. The “small mortgage” part was misleading as I assumed the mortgage was say $1 mm and the purchase price $9 mm.

If I were to marry someone with tens to hundreds of millions and they came to me with a prenup to protect that money, I’d absolutely want to keep my own earnings separate. He would have been foolish had he signed over 50% of his future earnings to her. Doesn’t at all seem unreasonable to me that he protected his money in the same manner she did his.

The irony is that he would have happily married without a prenup, which she forced on him, as she was obligated to in her family. She would have done much better without a prenup in almost every U.S. state, except I believe CT and MA. I think those are the only states that consider her kind of trust/inheritance assets as part of the marital pot. But even in CT and MA a lot of the money that comes to her when her stepmother dies would probably be irrelevant to the asset division imposed by a judge in a trial.

This is not true. She commingled her inheritance by paying for the houses with it. That would have been 50/50 in most states. Only the parts of the trusts that came to her later and stayed separate are protected under state law. She would have been financially wiser to put the houses in a trust that details what percent he would put into the house and what percent he would get out, while maintaining the houses in the trust for the kids or to have some kind of separate pre-nuptial contract about the houses and any equity from them.

You’re missing my point. She was the one demanding a prenup; he didn’t want one. But she would have been better off with no prenup. Because the bulk of her assets (those in trusts) were largely protected anyway from being considered marital property (until she commingled some of them), except to some degree in Massachusetts and Connecticut. And with no prenup and her long marriage, she would have gotten 50% of the marital estate, which would have included all “his” assets.

The prenup that he was asked to sign basically said “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.” It was a sort of a belt-and-suspenders document to supplement the protection afforded by the trust arrangements. In the case of a divorce, assuming correctly that she would become a SAHM, she could emerge from a long marriage with 10X-20X-30X as much as he. So he demanded that the prenup be changed to a “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours” document.

+100000

It’s perfectly fair that he wanted his earnings to stay separate given she was keeping her money/income separate!

Who in their right mind would fork over 50% of their earnings to someone when they are keeping 100% of theirs and worth tens of millions of dollars?

A lot of her book is projecting. She used him for image and to support a lavish lifestyle where she went from club to club and send kids to boarding schools. Here’s a guy who earned his own money! He didn’t bring significant wealth into the marriage and earned it through hard work. She had the audacity to suggest he used her, when here she is having lived off him for decades and collecting income from family money. Belle has been handed everything in life including admittance to Harvard and she is being told NO for the first time in her life.

The worst is her suggestion her trusts paid for both properties almost entirely. Now we find out they had sizable (large!) mortgages on these properties he paid for over two decades. Of course he was going to at some point suggest he walk away with a stake in those! In what world would someone pay towards two properties for two decades and then walk away with $0?

I can see right through Belle. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

It's weird how people keep insisting he paid the mortgages when she was pretty clear that they split expenses 50/50. So "they" paid the mortgage. And, she did NOT "live off him for decades" since they split expenses 50/50. She paid the entirety of the sizable down payments on their two homes and split all other expenses 50/50. Her family paid the kid's school tuition and college savings. He worked for her uncle until 2016. There is no way to look at this as "she lived off him".

I find this whole thread a wild example of how people justify why a man's money is his and a woman's money (and time) is also his. It's a cultural relic of the not so distant past when legally speaking a woman's money and time were her husband's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You realize she kept all her income, right?

You don't seem to have read her book, if you don't realize she basically had no income for 20 years because she stayed home raising their 3 kids (despite having equally strong academic credentials as her spouse.) Do you not realize that this was unrenumerated labor she provided to their children?

IT’s not just unrenumerated labor she provided to her children, it’s unrenumerated labor she provided to him which he was then able to monetize for his career success - keeping all the money he earned (part of which was due to her unrenumerated labor) for himself.

She kept all her money to herself! Per the prenup.

You can keep saying that, but those of us who know how to read know it's not true. Just because people are rich doesn't mean that they can't be victims of husbands who financially abuse them.

She did not keep all her money to herself. She put most of two trust funds (in her name only) into real estate then titled in both her and her husband's names. So, as soon as she did that, her money was not in her name and he could expect to get half of the house's value in divorce, especially if he paid any of his income toward bills on the house, which she acknowledged he did. The inheritance became "commingled" and thus marital property.

Her lawyer told her not to do it. It's unclear to me why she did it, except for cultural reasons -- that's the way marriage worked. He, however, never titled any of his assets or income in her name, and was not transparent with her about his income or savings or prospective partnership timeline. There are reasons to want to have a husband be able to stay in a house with kids after your untimely death, but there are other ways to do it rather than outright titling the house together. Put the house in a trust controlled by Belle or her family. Give the husband a right to live in the house until the kids are 18 or 21 or 25, and then the house is sold and the proceeds are held in trust for the kids. Or have a contract which states what part of the increase of value of the house is apportioned to Belle or her husband based on when and how much each put into the house. It sounds like she didn't have enough guaranteed income to pay for the entire mortgage of both houses and still be able to support their lifestyle. This is a problem that many couples experience after divorce - not being able to support the joint house and same lifestyle, albeit most people are not at this high an income bracket. Because he ended up becoming a partner (in part due to her SAHM life and her family pedigree), he had a future income potential that she did not, so I can understand why she didn't believe it would be prudent to keep both houses if he insisted on taking half of each.

I find it frustrating that articles incorrectly say she is worth $60 million. Something like 2/3 or more of that amount is tied up in a life estate for her stepmom. It could be decades before she inherits anything from that and there is no certainty of the worth over time. Meanwhile, the issue is can she support the lifestyle at the time of divorce?

I'm in a similar situation, although not at that high an income bracket. I ended my marriage due to my ex-husband's serial infidelity. He chose to walk away without parenting our two children, and he chose to pay minimal support because the law won't force him to pay for college or any extras and because somehow he believes that because my parents are wealthy I am wealthy even though it is obvious I am not. I may inherit a substantial sum in a day or decades, or I may not, and meanwhile he impoverishes me by making me the full-time parent and making me pay for all extras and college. Having gone SAHM due to his extensive work travel schedule, there is no way I can earn enough to support my kids without his equal contribution. He also gets away with it because I kept the secret of our divorce, telling only my parents, siblings and a few friends why we were separating.

At the core, the men who do this are sociopaths - using other people for their own advancement. They get away with it as long as they can manipulate people and still maintain their public face. That is why what Burden has done is so extraordinary -- to break the silence on this sociopathy by telling the truth of the infidelity and abandonment in a way that doesn't make her the "crazy one" is really a rarity. And the book is successful because many women recognize themselves in it -- having husbands who walk away from the parenting responsibility and full and equal financial responsibility for the kids in proportion to their income.

The misleading part of her book is how she presents the properties as her trusts having paid for them in almost entirety. Except there were decent sized mortgages on both properties. He paid for those mortgages and upkeep for decades. The “small mortgage” part was misleading as I assumed the mortgage was say $1 mm and the purchase price $9 mm.

If I were to marry someone with tens to hundreds of millions and they came to me with a prenup to protect that money, I’d absolutely want to keep my own earnings separate. He would have been foolish had he signed over 50% of his future earnings to her. Doesn’t at all seem unreasonable to me that he protected his money in the same manner she did his.

The irony is that he would have happily married without a prenup, which she forced on him, as she was obligated to in her family. She would have done much better without a prenup in almost every U.S. state, except I believe CT and MA. I think those are the only states that consider her kind of trust/inheritance assets as part of the marital pot. But even in CT and MA a lot of the money that comes to her when her stepmother dies would probably be irrelevant to the asset division imposed by a judge in a trial.

This is not true. She commingled her inheritance by paying for the houses with it. That would have been 50/50 in most states. Only the parts of the trusts that came to her later and stayed separate are protected under state law. She would have been financially wiser to put the houses in a trust that details what percent he would put into the house and what percent he would get out, while maintaining the houses in the trust for the kids or to have some kind of separate pre-nuptial contract about the houses and any equity from them.

You’re missing my point. She was the one demanding a prenup; he didn’t want one. But she would have been better off with no prenup. Because the bulk of her assets (those in trusts) were largely protected anyway from being considered marital property (until she commingled some of them), except to some degree in Massachusetts and Connecticut. And with no prenup and her long marriage, she would have gotten 50% of the marital estate, which would have included all “his” assets.

The prenup that he was asked to sign basically said “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.” It was a sort of a belt-and-suspenders document to supplement the protection afforded by the trust arrangements. In the case of a divorce, assuming correctly that she would become a SAHM, she could emerge from a long marriage with 10X-20X-30X as much as he. So he demanded that the prenup be changed to a “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours” document.

I'm not missing your point. You are mis-stating how the law does and doesn't protect trust money and inheritance. If you have a trust or an inheritance and you keep it separate, then most states will protect it. BUT, if you take your trust money and buy a house with it and your spouse contributes any money at all to it (mortgage, expenses, time toward upkeep, etc.) then the law considers it "commingled" and it becomes part of the marital estate subject to a 50/50 split in a divorce no matter how little the other spouse contributed toward it.

Similarly, if you have an inheritance and you regularly take money from the inheritance and spend it on family bills then the trust can be broken and the spouse can demand future earnings from it, because the assets are being used as "income" and the other spouse may have a claim to that income in divorce.

He likely didn't want a trust in the beginning because, for him, it was better to be able to gamble that he could break the trust later on.

That's why she did a prenup - because, in fact, her trust assets would be used for the marital situation - both as income stream and down payment - and thus would be unprotected without a prenup.

There is no lawyer on this planet who would tell Belle Burden "you're better off without a trust".