Belle Burden gets a phone call: “Your husband is having an affair with my wife.”
Belle confronts her husband, James. “He said: I thought I was happy but I’m not. I thought I wanted our life, but I don’t…. I feel like a switch has flipped. I’m done…. You can have the house and the apartment. You can have custody of the kids. I don’t want it, I don’t want any of it.” (p. 14-15)
After 20 years of a seemingly happy marriage and three kids, James–a hedge fund manager–opts out of everything. Belle–a pro bono lawyer–is stunned and tries to understand how her Life just got completely upended. She asks James to tell her what she did wrong. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” (p. 16). Belle begs Hames to do therapy with her on Zoom. He refuses and stops answering Belle’s phone calls.
Strangers chronicles Belle Burden’s struggle to understand how her happy marriage to a man she loves…blew up. Belle, who should have known better, gets burned when James brings out the prenuptial agreement she signed before she married him. James considers completely ruining Belle financially.
“I fell into a deep well of despair and shame. I could no longer see the road ahead of me. I couldn’t leave the house. I couldn’t get out of bed. It was the same paralysis I felt in the first weeks after James left, but it felt much darker. When I closed my eyes, I saw myself hanging from the rafter in my bedroom.” (p. 227)
I was drawn into Belle Burden’s nightmare. The husband Belle loved and thought she knew turns out to be a complete stranger who rejects the 20 year marriage–and the three children–Belle and he shared. This is a harrowing memoir shows how strange Life can be. GRADE: A
No interest. Real-life marriages being blown up are not my cup of tea. I would feel dirty reading about them. I’ll stick to fiction.
Jerry, normally I share the same attitude you have about dysfunctional marriages. But Belle Burden’s story intrigued me because of her husband’s inexplicability.
Yeah, excellent book. Her parents were well known (and, yes, divorced) New Yorkers Carter and Ananda Burden.
Jeff, Belle Burden’s marriage break-up is a complete puzzle.
Amanda
It sounds interesting, but I don’t think I’d want to read it. Sadly, people walk away from the lives they’ve created with and for others every day. I do hope Burden has been able to get back on her feet—her kids deserve at least one parent who doesn’t just up and leave.
Deb, Belle Burden faces financial ruin at one point in this disastrous break-up. But she manages to survive. But the question that torments her every day is: WHY?
What was weird is that, even at the end of the book, you can’t really understand the ex-husband’s thinking and behavior. He does see the daughters, but only occasionally.
Jeff, yes, you’re right. James doesn’t remarry, he does take his daughters to Knick games, and he continues to make millions as a hedge fund manager. But, as Deb said, he walked away from his Life into…semi-isolation.
I’ve been there and the shock and grief swallow you like a black hole. Clawing back your life is a Herculean feat although you can emerge, to paraphrase Hemingway, stronger in the broken places not to mention a hell of a lot wiser. One of the more sobering revelations I experienced was that since our society has normalized divorce to the point of trivializing it as if it were no different than changing hair styles (I could strangle idiots who use terms like “starter marriage”). Everyone else in your life is at a loss as to why you don’t just shake it off and start dating or at least move on with a shrug, which is incredibly alienating. It’s like you look around and everyone else is a pod person.
I read recently that more and more Americans past the age of 40 are not remarrying after a divorce (except for men with lots of money who marry younger women, of course). I get it. The experience changes your ability to trust someone profoundly because it turns out you never really do know them and they can turn out to be, or change into, a monster, so fast it’s horrifying.
Byron, once your trust and love is betrayed, it’s hard to recover. I was dating a girl when I went off to college fulling intending on marrying her when I graduated. When I returned home for Summer Vacation after my Freshman year, she told me she was engaged to another guy. I was in shock. I had no indication of her change of feelings. Her weekly letters were full of love and hope and perfume. I didn’t go out on a date with another girl for two years…