Reply to Belle Burden’s “Strangers”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DH runs in these hedge fund/finance ”big swinging d*ck” circles, and the men making $$$ are all (including my DH) sociopaths.  It is so commonplace that I don’t consider it just an innate personality characteristic, but rather a learned behavior in response to their mega success and ubiquity of that behavior in their circles.

DH has one friend in particular who I immediately thought of after reading about Belle Burden (I haven’t read her book).  Despite having everything you could possibly want in life - beautiful wife and kids, tons of money, vacation homes, successful career etc etc, he left his wife and kids because he wasn’t “happy.”  From what I could gather, he wants to be able to hop on a plane to party and do drugs whenever he feels like without having to answer to his wife.  I know this wife gave him *a lot* of leash to begin with, but it still wasn’t enough.  Ultimately, these guys who have more money than they know what to do with would rather party, have lots of sex and drugs and live a life unfettered by marriage and kids. [/quote]

This is interesting. So you think it's both because of their money/high social status and the influence they have on each other?[/quote]

NP here. I know someone of my extended family who behaved like this until they had a family crisis. They’ve settled down, but they’re still difficult.  That said, my own ex-husband, still high net worth, but not that high, so the exact same thing to me. He had everything he knew he had everything and yet he was still unhappy. So he left.  Sometimes I wonder if they work so hard to get to these spots because of some sort of like childhood issues and then when they realize it doesn’t resolve those childhood issues (that they aren’t aware of) they declare themselves unhappy and since I don’t have any financial constraints, they figure why not go check out the other side of the grass.[/quote]

My opinion is that they simply get bored with the lifestyle. I know some women in these circles and everything is superficial. You say he had “everything,” but what about love, respect and free time? If you define “everything” as a fancy apartment, country house, kids in TT privates….well, some people get bored with that and want more. Some people get so engrossed with the lifestyle that they can’t understand some people tire of it. A lot of the focus of strangers was the private club, properties, lifestyle and I wouldn’t be shocked if [b]Henry/James[/b] simply got bored with it all. If you’ve lived your entire life in a monied circle you don’t even know that there are people out there who don’t care at all about private clubs and private schools. [/quote]

Henry James!  That’s perfect, because it’s the same social set he wrote about and the plot (a long con?) is a little like The Golden Bowl.[/quote]
+1. I had the same thought. The story is very Henry Jamesian.[/quote]

I’d like to think Belle Burden is intentional with the Henry/James names, but I kind of doubt it.  The Golden Bowl really is like Strangers, except how events shake out over time (no spoilers).  Belle is like the Maggie Vervor character, and her husband is like  
“Prince Amerigo, an impoverished but charming Italian aristocrat,” who cheats on Maggie, renewing his affair with a former lover, Charlotte Stant.[/quote]

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