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- [00:00]
Belle Burden
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Podcast Announcer
Guaranteed Human Family Secrets is a production of iHeartradio.
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Belle Burden
Were there red flags? The subtle or not subtle warnings I should have seen before we married. The ones people ask me about now. Wanting something, anything to prove that our fate could have been predicted. That the same thing couldn't happen to them. Maybe the shift in personality at Kenyon, maybe the arrests and the breaking of girls hearts. Maybe his tendency to direct and mind to follow. Maybe the untold tale of his father. But these felt like stories of a rebellious boy becoming a responsible man. The normal mysteries of a three dimensional human being. There is nothing I look back on now and say how could I have missed that? Other couples I knew then and know now had many more flags, redder flags and they stayed married. And doesn't it all look different? Wouldn't your own story look different if you knew how it was going to end?
- [01:11]
Dani Shapiro
That's Belle Burden, attorney and author of the recent book A Memoir of a Marriage. Bell's story is on its surface one of privilege. That's a word that gets a lot of play. These privilege. But privilege does not protect us from pain. The pain of loneliness, the pain of a solitary childhood, the weight of expectations that do not come from our own deepest longings, but rather from a sense of the way it's supposed to be. It's also a book about following an intricate choreography set out for us at birth and what happens when the dance steps completely change on us. I'm Dani Shapiro and this is Family Secrets. The secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others and the secrets we keep from ourselves.
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Interviewer
Bel tell me about the landscape of your childhood, your early memories, where you lived, what it was like, the atmosphere surrounding you.
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Belle Burden
My parents got divorced when I was 2 and I can't remember a time before that. I always remember them being divorced and I mostly lived at my mother's apartment which which was on East 84th street and my father lived on East 52nd Street. Both of them lived all the way over by the east river and I only got to see my father every other weekend. That was typical custody arrangement of the 1970s. And at my mother's apartment I lived with my brother, my mother and always a live in nanny and my mother was working and my brother was often playing Atari video games which had just been invented. And I remember in that house feeling lonely a lot. And I had the nannies that I had were not the nicest people. So I think of my childhood as a happy time but also a lonely time. When I saw my father and my stepmother every other weekend, I loved being with them, but it was sporadic. I went to school on the Upper east side, a private girls school called Spence. And I started there in first grade and had some friends there. But it was socially a challenging place, especially in middle school, which tends to be difficult too. And I was very quiet, very not cool is what I would say. Nerdy. And I also lived all the way east and the school was on Madison Avenue. So I did not feel very much in that social world. And I think in living all the way over there, it was very quiet. And it didn't really feel like the swirl of New York because you had to walk several blocks even to get to a subway. But in seventh grade, girls in my class started to become very sophisticated. Started to go to Studio 54 to really go out at night. And I was not like that. I couldn't really figure out how to be social in that way. I was home baking cookies. That was what I did. And I was reading. I just remember a lot of quiet. I remember the first book I really like, long book that I really got so absorbed in, was Harriet the Spy. And I remember reading it on the floor of my bedroom. And I just consumed the whole thing, I think, in one sitting. And I really felt like I knew her. I remember that feeling so clearly. And then Judy Blume books, even Encyclopedia Brown. I really escaped into books. And they became very meaningful to me.
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Interviewer
And you did well in school?
- [05:10]
Belle Burden
I did well in school, except that in every single class, every report card, the teacher said that I was bright and doing well, but that I needed to speak in class. I never spoke in class. And this continued through high school. I went to boarding school, and it is a school with oval tables called the Harkness Method. Even math is taught around an oval table. And I really had a lot of trouble speaking. I would overthink and my face would turn bright red. And it became so important what I was going to say because I hadn't said anything in so long. And then it became too hard to actually say it. So that really defined my academic life. But I was very conscientious. I did my homework on Friday afternoons for the weekend. I worked very hard in high school, and in high school is really where I started writing and was nurtured by a couple of extraordinary teachers who could see that writing was maybe a path, not out of shyness, but just a way to access me and for me to express myself. Since I wasn't very comfortable doing it verbally.
- [06:22]
Interviewer
And in boarding school, were there a lot of social rules and mores the same way that there were expense, even if they were different, or what was the social aspect of being in high school?
- [06:35]
Belle Burden
The social aspect was actually incredible for me because it's a big boarding school, Exeter, in New Hampshire. And I found my people there. It was a place that rewarded the academics. It didn't feel like there was a real social hierarchy. I was put into a very small dorm, and a group of us became very, very close friends. It took a while. The first two months, I was very homesick, and I was too afraid to go to the dining hall. So I lived on David's Cookies, which were these popular cookies in New York that my stepmother used to send me. And then I started making friends in the dorm, and we were different ages. Two were older, one in my class, and two were younger. And they became like sisters for me because we grew up together. Living together in this very intimate way when you're not living at home and academically, it was really wonderful for me. So I did not feel the social pressure there or the social failure there. I felt very much understood and like I was in the right place.
- [07:42]
Interviewer
That's such a gift when that happens.
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Belle Burden
Yes.
- [07:45]
Interviewer
I wonder, too. You write about the Burden family trait of temper.
- [07:49]
Belle Burden
Yes.
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Interviewer
And how you did not exhibit that trait, but you were surrounded by it. So was it also just kind of good to be on your own, kind of developing that whole. Like the whole in loco parentis aspect of boarding school?
- [08:04]
Belle Burden
Yes, it was. I think volatile is not. Is too strong of a word. But my father definitely had moods and emotions and would have temper tantrums that were more like a child's temper tantrum of getting his way. And my brother was similar, had bad moods and tempers. And I think that I was born very quiet, but I think that I became quieter in that and very watchful, more observant. And my mom, at that point, before I went to boarding school, had gotten divorced for the second time. And I love my stepfather. And that was a really hard loss to have that marriage end. And she started dating again, which is exactly what she should do. But that was hard for me in the couple years before I left that there were new relationships and relationships ending. And so, again, I wouldn't characterize it as volatile, but it was changeable and unpredictable. And I think going away at that point was the best thing for me. It was a calmer and more predictable atmosphere for me.
- [09:18]
Dani Shapiro
Bel grows up in New York in a family that, from the outside has A sparkly public presence. Her mother's life sometimes appears in the society pages, and her stepfather moves through the world as a public figure. But inside the apartment, Belle doesn't feel like she's living in a fishbowl. This is long before the Internet, before the constant gaze of social media. Whatever attention exists in the wider world barely registers in her childhood. The family's public reputation is simply not something she's aware of. What she is aware of is her own inner life, especially her love of writing. When she arrives at college, Harvard, she, as just a freshman, gets accepted into a competitive writing workshop. For a moment, it feels like the beginning of something. Something true and something she can lay claim to. But then, during a class critique, a fellow student named Greg methodically dismantles her story, Submission in front of everyone. The teacher says nothing. The room stays quiet. And in that silence, something closes inside her. The possibility that writing might be her path suddenly feels out of reach, as if a door she had just opened has been slammed shut.
- [10:40]
Belle Burden
It was really painful because I think in high school we can form an identity, and being a writer became a really important part of who I thought I was and who I thought I was going to be. And I arrived at college so hopeful about it and excited to get into that class. And he did tear it apart. I remember not so much him having concrete criticisms of the piece, which was a short story, but really raising it to the level of my writing as a whole, my talent. And I had to check with a friend to make sure who was in the class with me, to make sure that I was not, you know, making this more dramatic or fabricating it in any way. And that friend said it indeed happened. What I think about now is the fact that he probably thought about it for maybe two minutes after the class, you know, that it was just something that he did. He was four years older, and maybe because he was male and because he spoke with such authority and confidence that I took it as the truth rather than one person's opinion. And the fact that he said it really wasn't the problem, the fact that I believed it and changed the course of my life because of it, is really the problem. And I have daughters that are that age now, college age. And it would horrify me if they changed what they believed was their passion and talent because. Because of what one person said. So I think it's an important story for people to hear. I think what's interesting is that other people I know have a similar story, but in different fields, maybe a Boss saying something. But yes, I stopped writing. I got through the class. I think I wrote a couple more pieces, but my heart was not in it anymore. And I. It was one semester, and after that I completely stopped writing. And I decided I was going to be a lawyer instead of. And I didn't write again other than legal writing for 30 years. I am a person who likes steps. I like constructions. I like to follow instructions. And it looked like a path where if I just kept working hard and putting one foot in front of the other, that I would get to the finish line of finishing law school, taking the bar, and getting a job. And the creative life is much, much harder. And I got knocked down once, and that was enough for me. I could not see the path beyond that. And the law was a much more clear, secure route to take.
- [13:25]
Dani Shapiro
What truly interests Bel is criminal defense. One summer, she works at the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn. And the experience standing beside people whose futures are uncertain and is meaningful to her. But when it's time to begin her career, the offer she receives is from Davis Polk, one of New York's most prestigious corporate law firms. It's the kind of opportunity few people refuse. And so Belle steps into a very different world from the one she had imagined.
- [13:58]
Belle Burden
I loved being in a courtroom. I loved sitting second seat in a trial. I loved the. The investigative aspect of it. I like the writing aspect of it. I liked the public interest aspect of it, providing a lawyer to those who can't afford one. But I. I think this is another example of life presenting a fork in the road and choosing one that was actually not consistent with who I am and what I like to do. Not passive. This, this. I actively chose to go in this direction. But I am someone who enjoys achievement and documented accomplishment. This is true now, and they just arrive earlier now. But in law schools, the firms come to campus courting, you meet with them for interviews, and then you collect these offers. And it is something to boast about, to feel accomplished about. And I fell into that and got a number of offers to be a summer associate, chose Davis Polk, and then went back full time thinking, this is a great thing to do, to really like a finishing school, to really be tested in this very competitive environment and to see how I did again, you know, just one step after the other to land at being a good lawyer and being an accomplished person. And I think the criminal defense path would have been a much braver choice because it's not as good. So from A to B to C, to keep achieving it just would have been like, okay, this is what I'm interested in. This is my passion, and I'm going to try and do a good job at it.
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Interviewer
And I love that phrase, documented accomplishments. I think the way that our culture and society and world sort of operates in that sort of box checking kind of way.
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Belle Burden
Yes, absolutely.
- [15:49]
Dani Shapiro
We'll be right back. In 1996, Belle's father dies suddenly at the age of 54. The loss is shocking and destabilizing. She's in the middle of law school, preparing to return to Davis Polk after working there as a summer associate. His death is a rupture in the midst of a carefully plotted future. In the days that follow, new details emerge, details that complicate the story the family thought they knew. The autopsy reveals that he had been taking diet pills, and financial records show he died deeply in debt. Bell and those closest to him begin to realize that the version of his life they had held onto, the clean, polished narrative, was never quite the whole truth. For years, they had wanted his story to feel pristine. Now they are left to sit with a far messier reality.
- [16:59]
Belle Burden
I think both of those were things that we have carried as a family and not revealed to the world. And the first, my father grew up in Beverly Hills. His mother was an actress, and his father was a photographer and a film producer. And his mother was always very concerned about weight. I would say not even appearance generally, but weight in particular. And both my father and my aunt were a little heavy as children and teenagers. And there were doctors in Beverly Hills at that point that would hand out diet pills or which is really speed to anyone very easily. And so my grandmother gave my father and my aunt diet pills starting at a, you know, in teenage years. And so my father used them periodically through College in his 30s. I don't know exactly when it stopped, but he stopped doing it because it was so bad for his health and in particular, his heart. He had a documented heart issue, which was a leaky valve that we think maybe he got from having scarlet fever as a child. And he knew he would have to have the valve replaced at some point. People do it much more easily now. But it was major surgery, and he was very afraid of it, did not want to convalesce and have a scar and all those things. So he kept putting it off. And he would go to the cardiologist every six months to get a checkup. And he had been cleared just a few months before he died, saying that he could wait to have the surgery. He died very suddenly on a January morning. My stepmother went out to walk the dogs and came home and his alarm was going off, and she found him dead in their bed. And we thought, after talking to his cardiologist, that he was in this very rare 2% that die from sudden arrhythmic death with this valve issue. And we thought, how unlucky he is to have that happen. How horrible. And we discovered afterwards, actually not in the autopsy, but his secretary confessed that she had been making him appointments with a diet doctor and that he had been taking diet pills, I think, for a year. And he had kept it from my stepmother, Susan, and from me and my brother, almost like this rebellious thing that I think he thought he was getting away with. He and Susan had a really wonderful, close, intimate marriage. So to her, it felt just so devastating that he hadn't told her this and that he was taking this risk with his life. And we don't think it killed him, but it certainly did not help his heart issue. And we had carried this secret for the last 30 years. He died 30 years ago. A couple months ago, when I had started writing again, I wrote about this and then had asked my brother and Susan's permission to be public about it, because I do think that it ate away at us in some way that I hope talking about it as I'm talking about it to you right now, is healthier for our family. The second piece was he was in debt. My stepmother knew, and my brother and I sort of knew because they would say, like, oh, the bank owns the apartment. He had taken out a lot of loans to finance his radio company. And so we didn't really focus on it. We just thought everything would be okay. But when he died, we discovered that he was $40 million in debt, which we were lucky enough to sell his company. He died so young and died in such a way that we were left just reeling, emotionally reeling, financially reeling, and then also reeling from the fact that he was hurting himself in a way that we were completely unaware of.
- [20:52]
Interviewer
Yeah. You know, and it strikes me, too, that the phrase going through my head is, this wasn't supposed to happen. Right?
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Belle Burden
Exactly. Yep.
- [20:59]
Interviewer
And it ties to the documented accomplishments in a way, a way in which our whole culture is infected with this idea that if you just. If you do these things and you do them in this order, that you will be protected. And if you live in this way, then, you know, you will live till you're, you know, 98 years old. And the affront, in a way, when that just is not the case.
- [21:25]
Belle Burden
Yes, it was the first time that I just felt like life was completely unpredictable. And it really brought me to my knees and my stepmother too, and my brother too. And I don't think any part of him thought that he was going to die. I think he thought he could take risk in all sorts of ways. He was someone that had done things in the right order and gone to good schools and worked for Bobby Kennedy and then was in city council in New York, then started his own company. But he did like to take some risk. I think that excited him in some way. And I don't think he ever thought that it would be catastrophic.
- [22:07]
Interviewer
Yeah. So how long after your father's death did you meet James?
- [22:13]
Belle Burden
I met James in April of 1998. So it was two years and a couple months. But it still felt very fresh for me because we were still dealing with the financial aftermath and selling his company. And while I was working at Davis Polk these insane hours doing work that I really did not even understand, I did well at it because I was good at following instructions, but I really was not interested in finance or corporations or banks or securities. So I was doing that work. And then I would have to take these calls. I had an office mate, so I'd have to take these calls in the phone booth at Davis Polk to talk to lawyers and my brother and Susan trying to sort out my father's debt, his estate, all of those things. And it just felt very bleak and very difficult. I really hated all of that so much. And so when I met James, I was still suffering with that and with the loss of my father. We started working together. I was moved into his group and I had a boyfriend at the time. And I did not find James to be someone I would be interested in because he was so, so familiar in a lot of ways. He was from an all boys school in New York. He had gone to boarding school. He kind of looked a bit like my father. Same height and build and blonde hair. And I just thought, oh, that's too. That's too familiar to me. And I was sort of stuck in this other relationship. But it soon developed into a very, very intense romance.
- [23:55]
Interviewer
And I think it bears saying that the other relationship was with someone who was a much less safe option.
- [24:04]
Belle Burden
Yes, he was unemployed. I did not know when he would ever be employed again. He was living in my apartment, not paying rent. I was not in love with him. It was one of those situations where I think another person would have gotten out of it or gotten them to move out. I was very bad at confrontation, very bad at hurting someone's feelings. So I just. I felt very stuck.
- [24:28]
Interviewer
I mean, this is the way in which I think, you know, so many of the crossroads in our lives happen. Right. So you were still in your 20s when you met James. You were, you know, far too young to lose your dad. Your dad was far too young to die, and you're unraveling all of this very heavy duty family stuff and. And you're in the wrong relationship. And, you know, along comes James. And when you begin your great romance, you describe the part of him that you most fell for was that on the one hand, he did have this kind of very familiar and recognizable trajectory and also history, but he kind of a little bit of a bad boy history.
- [25:13]
Belle Burden
Yes, I loved that. I loved that he was both stable and safe and also a little bit dangerous. He got in a lot of trouble in high school. He'd been arrested a few times, and he had a tattoo. So he's sort of this bad boy cleaned up, you know, who ended up at a great law school and a great firm. And that was intoxicating to me.
- [25:41]
Dani Shapiro
The relationship moves quickly, almost inevitably. Their romance has a kind of sweep to it. James stepping in, taking charge, making things feel secure and forward, moving. But even in those early days, there is one part of his life that remains out of reach, a sort of third rail with him. Not to be touched. James tells Bell the abridged version, his father suffered a breakdown at around age 40 and stopped working, and his family's financial stability collapsed. They had once lived comfortably in New York, but suddenly they were scraping together tuition and giving up even small luxuries. And that's the whole story. Whenever Belle tries to understand more, wanting to know every part of the man she's falling in love with, James gently but firmly shuts down. The subject is simply too painful. Bel begins to see how that history shapes him. His relentless work ethic, his drive to succeed, his urgency about providing it all traces back to those years of instability. But the deeper emotional terrain remains inaccessible to her. When she pushes, he withdraws, retreating into silence. Bel senses the tenderness there and learns not to press. Still, the relationship moves forward. One day, without ceremony or theatrics, James pulls a ring from his pocket. No box, no kneeling, and announces simply that they're getting married, that they're going to build a life and a family together. It's everything Belle has imagined. As they begin planning the wedding, another sort of financial family rule quietly comes into play. Years earlier, Belle's mother had required Belle and her brother to Sign a written agreement promising that they would one day have prenuptial agreements. Now, as the wedding approaches, that promise becomes real. And James, who deeply resents the idea, will only capitulate if one change is made to the agreement.
- [27:45]
Belle Burden
In a normal prenup, it says that you each keep what you came into the marriage with and that anything earned during the marriage will be split 50, 50. What James wanted was to say that anything earned during the marriage would not be split 50, 50 unless we affirmatively put it in joint name. And the way he explained it made sense to me. The way he explained it was that of course we would put things in joint name. We were going to be married, and we were going to be a unit, but that we should decide on a case by case basis to do so. So I went back to my lawyer to request this change, and he told me very clearly not to do it. He knew that I wanted to stay home with kids for a period of time. He knew that James was a lawyer, was going to move into the investment world, and that it was a bad idea for someone who may not have an income for a long time. And I could hear him say that. I knew what he was saying, But James was the man I was in love with. He was the man I was going to marry. He was the man I had now placed all my trust in. And I thought, I'm going to trust him with this. I'm going to make the change. So I insisted on the change. It was made, and we signed the prenup five days before we got married.
- [29:07]
Dani Shapiro
And did you tell your mother or
- [29:09]
Interviewer
your brother that you had made a change?
- [29:12]
Belle Burden
I didn't. I didn't tell them. I didn't ask their advice. I didn't tell my stepmother, who I'm very close to. And I think that was a sign that I really knew that it was not a good idea and that I didn't want them to tell me that it was a bad idea. I didn't want them to stop me. This is the problem with prenups. Sometimes I generally think they're a good idea, but they are often signed days or weeks before a wedding. And at that point, you just don't want anything to derail the wedding. You don't want to have to, you know, send back gifts and cancel anything. And you just are kind of really focused on that day happening. So I think that was a factor, too. But I think the fact that I didn't tell anyone in my family about the significant change shows that I was. I knew it was problematic, and I. I was to shame that I had agreed to it.
- [30:05]
Dani Shapiro
What do you think would have happened
- [30:07]
Interviewer
if you had said no to James?
- [30:11]
Belle Burden
I don't know. I actually don't know. I've never been asked that question. I don't know if he would have really stuck to it and either not signed it or not gone through with the wedding. It's interesting to think about. I don't know.
- [30:25]
Interviewer
So on your honeymoon, you have one fight, and you had very few fights, and you have one fight in Bali, and it's actually over money. And James has a real pet peeve that you do not examine carefully a check after a meal before you sign the receipt.
- [30:46]
Belle Burden
Yes, he got very upset because I think I handed over my credit card and didn't open the envelope that you get when you get a bill. And that's what we did in my family. You just. You trusted the restaurant. You gave a big tip, always generous, always picking up checks. That's just what we did. And it made him very upset, very nervous. I was his wife at that point, and I think he really worried that I would be a big spender like my father. And he wanted to be clear that we were not going to do the things that way in our marriage. And part of me was really upset and didn't like being scolded in that way. But another part of me thought, okay, this man is going to make sure that I don't end up in financial ruin. It felt caretaking in some way that this man, my father, was dead. This man was going to watch out for me and keep me safe.
- [31:49]
Interviewer
It makes sense. And as does your being really angry at being chided.
- [31:55]
Belle Burden
Yes. Yes, it was both.
- [31:59]
Dani Shapiro
Once Belle and James settle back in New York, the next chapter begins to take shape. They want a home. They want a family. James finds an apartment he loves in Tribeca, slightly further out than Belle imagined living, though still close to the subway and to friends and family nearby. It isn't exactly the place she would have chosen, but she can see the life and future it might hold. Space for children, room to grow. The price tag on the apartment happens to match the exact amount sitting in one of Belle's trusts, money left to her by her mother's stepfather. She makes a formal request to the trustees to withdraw the funds, and when the purchase goes through, she places both her name and James on the deed to Belle. This all feels pretty natural. This is what marriage means, right? Sharing everything. It also feels like a kind of offering, a contribution to the life they are building. Together. In the next few years, that life indeed builds. After a difficult pregnancy, their first son, Finn, is born. Then comes Evie, then Carrie. Belle stays home with the children, something she had always imagined doing. While James throws himself into work and rises quickly at his investment firm, their lives settle into a familiar pattern. Following classic and outdated gender lines, he works constantly. She manages the world of the home. James is direct about the division, declaring plainly, I don't do bed, bath or homework. Leaving the daily rhythms of parenting to Belle. She does have help, but even so, the house is full and busy, and she is deeply immersed in motherhood. For Belle, this is more than routine. It's an act of correction. She is determined to give her children something she feels was missing from her own childhood. Her mother, who grew up as the daughter of Babe Paley, one of the most famous and glamorous women of her era, saw her own mother only once a month. In Belle's family, generations of distance had quietly shaped what motherhood looked like. Now Belle is doing it differently, pouring herself into her children as her marriage moves forward on the unspoken bargain she and James have made.
- [34:22]
Belle Burden
This unspoken bargain between us, which started pretty quickly because he really was such a hard worker, so devoted to doing a good job, first at a fund of funds and then later at a hedge fund. And I did want to stay home at kids to cure something that I felt in my childhood and my mother felt in her childhood even more so to just be present all the time. And I think what happened in our family was that his work became so much the family enterprise. It was like everything was in service to. It always came first, beyond anything, beyond any birthday party, parent teacher conference, any math test, illness, anything. His work, his getting enough sleep, his being able to work on weekends, all of that. And I admired it. I admired how hardworking he was. But I think that in that, I think it's not so much about staying home with kids. I think it's when one person's career and ambitions and dreams take over, it becomes easier for the other person, in this case me, to lose sight of their own ambitions and their own dreams and becomes harder to find it again. It just gets overwhelmed, I think, you
- [35:42]
Interviewer
know, you write at one point that you had date night, you'd go out to dinner.
- [35:45]
Belle Burden
I think about those dinners a lot because I really love those dinners. And I always felt like we had a really good time together. We talked about his work, but we also talked about kids. We talked about friends, we talked about politics, we talked about our plans. It felt intimate. It felt like, he knew me and I knew him. He was very quiet and mild mannered. It never felt like a big ego that we were. It was just all about him. But I do think, work wise, there was not a lot of room, room for both of us to have that. I had an opportunity to go back to work at one point for a job that I think I would have been good at. It would have been a good fit. It was at a foundation and I had done a lot of nonprofit work and still had my law license. And at that point, we were just so in deep with the division of responsibility that I was nervous about it, but he was definitive about it that I should not go back to work. I take responsibility for that. I think it was my responsibility to say, this is important to me. I want to do it. But I do wish that he had been able to say, it's your turn to have the focus and to follow what you would like to do with your life, and I will do whatever I can to support you. I do wish that.
- [37:05]
Interviewer
Well, it begs the same question that I asked you before of, like, what do you think would have happened if you had said no about the prenup? What would have happened if you had said, you know what, I understand you're concerned about this, but I'm doing it. What would have happened there? Do you have the same feeling?
- [37:20]
Belle Burden
It does give me the same feeling. And it makes me feel a little bit sad about myself that I didn't have the gumption to fight for that. It's confusing when your partner is. He never yelled, he was never mean, he was never demeaning to me. He was always kind. So it's harder to decipher, I think, in that when you're being overly deferential, if that makes sense. Like, I wasn't fighting against anything. Clear. It felt like the tide that we were in. But I do think that if I had like put down my foot in both those circumstances, I don't know what the reaction would have been. I don't know if he could have have adjusted to that version of me.
- [38:09]
Interviewer
Yeah, I mean, what you're describing in part is that it's a way of being controlling that is, in the right circumstances and with the right person, very, very powerful.
- [38:22]
Belle Burden
It is. It's very. It's very powerful. And maybe more powerful because it's quiet.
- [38:26]
Interviewer
Yeah, I mean, I. It wouldn't have worked for you if he had, you know, been a kind of rageaholic about things that would have not. That wouldn't have worked for you.
- [38:35]
Belle Burden
Yep.
- [38:36]
Interviewer
You would have recognized that and it would have been. You would have run for the hills. This is something very different.
- [38:41]
Belle Burden
Different. And it felt like I was. I had improved on my childhood so much because there was no yelling and there was no volatility in that way. But it was its own. It had its own problems that are still hard to like, sort through, especially having loved him so much and felt in love with him, to kind of track and figure out how I became a bit smaller in the marriage.
- [39:09]
Dani Shapiro
When Bel is in her 40s, another step in the life she and James have built together comes into view. A country house. It's what families in their world tend to do. Leave the city on weekends, spend summers somewhere quieter. After looking at properties online, James visits one on Martha's Vineyard and calls Belle while at the property to say he's fallen in love with it and suggests they pull the trigger. Belle hasn't seen it, but she trusts him and they decide to buy it once again. The purchase is made possible through a trust Belle inherited from her family. She withdraws the funds, the deal closes, and just as she had with the Tribeca apartment, she places both of their names on the deed. The Vineyard house becomes part of the fabric of their family life, another shared investment in the future they believe they're cultivating together. The house is part of a community Vineyard haven and a small local club there, a sweet seeming cosseted place becomes central to their family's social life.
- [40:13]
Belle Burden
So it is private, tennis oriented club. I do not play tennis, but it's on this beautiful piece of land on Vineyard Sound and people have been going there for more than 100 years. Families have had multiple generations. It's very simple in terms of the. There's an inn and a little candy store and it is very, very married, I would say. I know of only a few people who've been divorced. It is unlike any place I'd ever been before because my family did not join private clubs and it was both unappealing to me because of that, but also I knew I was going to probably stay on the Vineyard with my small children at that point and it provided a day camp, it provided a community for us. I wouldn't have known anyone otherwise. So we applied to join and it's a three year process and for the first couple summers I really knew no one. It was a very hard community to break into. A lot of traditions, a lot of social life that it's just hard for people to know about you or you to know about them. But Then eventually we started being included, mostly meeting people through the kids. And it really became a wonderful community for us for a long time, with the kids having lots of friends, us going to cocktail parties and dinner parties, really kind people. A lot of women who, like me, were highly educated, professional degrees, and had decided to stay home. So I felt very connected to them. Sort of those heavenly days of having kids over for art class on the lawn and then getting pizzas and pouring white wine for the women and sunsets in July and all of that, it was really wonderful for a long time.
- [42:05]
Dani Shapiro
During these years, life is, well, lovely. The family spends time at the Vineyard house and James begins commuting there by seaplane. From the outside, everything appears smooth and lush and successful. Nothing to see here. And yet inside the marriage, the balance quietly shifts. James increasingly takes control of their finances, asking Belle to account for nearly every purchase. Eventually, she opens a second credit card just for small things she knows he might question. It's not meant to be a secret exactly, but it becomes one.
- [42:43]
Belle Burden
He was very stringent. He was very stringent about vacations, expenses. We've lived in this apartment for 23 years. I wanted to do some updating renovations. He was very, very stressed out about that as an example. And I think I've thought a lot about this, about why I handed so much over to him. And he did the meetings with the financial advisors, he reviewed the tax returns. He really had a handle on our whole budget and all of our assets, knew where everything sat. And I don't think it was a question, definitely no question of anything illegal. It wasn't like he was refusing to show me things. I just got very, very comfortable with him handling. Felt like this is how he was going to take care of our family. There was something that felt just wonderful about that. But I also think some peers are the same way about this, that it felt like I was helping him feel good about himself, like I was helping his self esteem. Having married into this family with money, it felt like an equalizing in, in a way like, I trust you with this. You're going to be in charge of this. And it's maybe the male ego in some way that I was pumping up in that. And then I think the more you lose touch with it, the more you convince yourself you can't understand it. And I'd been in meetings with bankers or lawyers who would only speak to him. It was like I was some accessory and they would use unnecessarily complicated acronyms and talked over me. And I think you convince Yourself that it's too hard. But I'm a former corporate lawyer. I, you know, did securities deals and with prospectuses and drafted really complicated debt covenants. I could understand it. I think anyone can understand it, but it's, I think, easy to convince yourself you can't. So I lost touch with our big picture, and I signed our tax returns because he gave me the page to sign, and I didn't read all the pages that came before it. Again, not hiding anything. I could have looked through it. I could have seen what his bonuses were, but I did not.
- [44:58]
Interviewer
Yeah, and so interesting because he did not want you to. Not because he was hiding anything from you, but because that would have been, in a way, a blow. That's how I'm reading it, you know, a blow to the ego of.
- [45:11]
Belle Burden
Just like I'm a blow to the ego.
- [45:13]
Interviewer
You do you, I'll do me. Everything will be fine.
- [45:16]
Belle Burden
Yep. Yep. It felt like it would be a statement of lack of trust, or not even trust, but like, lack of admiration. Like, of course you can handle this. I don't need to question things.
- [45:31]
Dani Shapiro
By 2015, James career is accelerating. He helps lead the sale of the investment firm where he's worked for years, then moves to a hedge fund and quickly rises through the ranks again. From that unreliable bird's eye view, everything looks like success upon success. But something in the atmosphere around him begins to change. He spends more time with colleagues, wealthy, competitive men who travel together, play tennis, take guys trips, and move easily within a world of money and power. Bell senses this shift, a sheen of entitlement that begins to surround that world. But still lives go on, and theirs is no exception to the rule. The kids are growing up, and the train of their family continues to chug forward along familiar tracks. Some years pass. In 2019, the couple meets with their lawyer to review their wills and estate plans. At the bottom of the agenda sits one unresolved issue, Extinguishing the prenup they had signed years earlier. But when they get to this item, James suggests they table the conversation, saying he has to get back to the office. Belle lets it go the way she has so often deferred to the urgency of his work. Then, in March of 2020, the world begins to shut down. As the pandemic spreads, Belle and her family retreat to their house on the Vineyard, assuming the lockdown will be brief. At first, the days feel strangely peaceful. Cooking together, long dinners, fires in the fireplace. But one evening, the phone rings. Bell picks up. It's a man she's never met. And he tells her that James is having an affair with his wife. The accusation seems impossible, does not compute. When Belle confronts James, she expects some explanation that will make the call disappear. Instead, he admits it, says there was an affair, but it was short and meaningless. Meanwhile, in the city, the other couple is having the same confrontation. A parallel reckoning unfolding in another home. The night stretches on in shock and confusion. James sleeps in the guest room. When morning comes, everything will be different. James will ask for, well, demand a divorce.
- [48:01]
Belle Burden
His whole affect had changed. It just had gone so cold, almost icy.
- [48:07]
Interviewer
Had you ever seen him like that before?
- [48:10]
Belle Burden
Never. Never. And he was fully dressed. He had carrying the bag. And he said, I thought I was happy, but I'm not, and I'm leaving right now. And he got in his jeep, got on a ferry, and left the island.
- [48:25]
Interviewer
He also told you that he was leaving everything?
- [48:29]
Belle Burden
Yes. He said, 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.
- [48:39]
Interviewer
It's just unfathomable. But, you know, in a way, he was so confronted. This affair was obviously, as affairs are, a secret, that he probably intended to keep a secret. And then it all blew up. And then he was trapped.
- [48:55]
Belle Burden
Yes, he was. And not just trapped in terms of me knowing, but trapped in terms of COVID which I see as an intensifier and accelerator because we were in this house together with no ability to leave. Although he did leave. And, yes, I think he was unmasked in some way, and he didn't know what to do with that.
- [49:21]
Interviewer
He doesn't say goodbye to the kids, and he leaves you in a state of complete shock and also having to
- [49:27]
Dani Shapiro
contend with what in the world you're
- [49:29]
Interviewer
going to say to your children.
- [49:30]
Belle Burden
Yes, what I'm going to say to them. And also just being so decimated emotionally that I was literally on the bathroom floor or in bed, unable to move. With two girls, 12 and 15, one who actually was aware of what was happening. She read a text on my iPad. And one who was unaware and deciding, on the advice of the therapist not to tell them so, doing this kind of dance with my older daughter where she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything. And me, you know, appearing like swollen face and, like, just disheveled and pretending like everything was fine. And I regret that because I think she obviously knew. And my younger daughter ended up being upset that I hadn't told her for all that time and that she was unaware of this huge thing that had happened in our family.
- [50:26]
Interviewer
And to just add that your son was riding out the pandemic with some boarding school friends of his in the Hamptons. So he was there not knowing he was with a family.
- [50:38]
Belle Burden
Yep.
- [50:39]
Interviewer
And not knowing what was going on for a period of time. So it's then late April, and you insist that he return and tell the kids.
- [50:49]
Belle Burden
I said, it's time. We have to tell them. And at first, he said he didn't want to and that I should tell them alone. And initially, I agreed with him because he was in the middle of New York City having an affair. And it was the height of COVID It was April of 2020 at that point. But then his boss called me and said, he really needs to be there. And so I relented. And he came up. He said he had only 90 minutes to be there. His boss had lent him a seaplane and pilot. And it was then that we had the conversation with the girls, and we FaceTimed our son to tell him. And it's a horrible conversation for any family. I don't think anyone ever forgets it.
- [51:34]
Interviewer
So there are two things about that. One is that in the middle of this horrible family moment, he turns to you and says, I'm hungry. Can you make me a sandwich?
- [51:46]
Belle Burden
Yes, he does. We have just told them.
- [51:50]
Interviewer
And you don't just make him a sandwich. Like, you go into the kitchen, you're like, I'm gonna make him the best fucking sandwich he's ever had in his whole life.
- [51:58]
Belle Burden
Exactly. And I think there was a part of me that wanted to say, make your own sandwich. You've lived here for 20 years. But I wanted to model. I had that, you know, mom track in my brain. Like, I want to model for my daughter. The older one was still in the room. That I'm going to be kind, and we're going to be friendly with each other. So, yes, I went in and I tried to make the best sandwich I possibly could so that he would leave. And thank God. How can I leave this woman who makes such great sandwiches? And, of course, the sandwich also represented, you know, everything, like, the home that we had built together, the warmth, the family. But he, I think, just ate the sandwich and didn't think about it at all.
- [52:39]
Interviewer
Yeah. And then the other thing that is very notable about that day is that he excuses himself from the room, and he goes down to the basement or wherever you keep your records and files, and he's searching for the prenup. The thing about that that I found really striking was that in the interim from that horrible night in March and his leaving the next morning, you had actually already gone down there and had done exactly that in this very careful, methodical way so that it wouldn't be clear that files had ever even been looked at.
- [53:16]
Belle Burden
I did. I did that a couple of weeks after he left the first time. And I used a box cutter. I opened up every box, even the ones deep in the basement. I took out every piece of paper looking for the prenup because we had not been able to find it in our emails on any files in New York. And I was starting to have this real hope that didn't exist, that we had never returned it to our lawyers. Maybe we'd never signed it. Maybe it had been lost in a move. And I started to have that hope. And I thought, God, if it is in one of those boxes, I'm going to get rid of it. Which is hard to admit as a
- [53:54]
Interviewer
member of the bar.
- [53:55]
Belle Burden
But I never found it. But if I had, I would. I think I would have burned it.
- [53:59]
Interviewer
What were you most afraid of?
- [54:01]
Belle Burden
I knew at that point I had not received any discovery yet. He had not filed for divorce, but I knew that I had to put both our names on our deeds, which were my primary assets, so he would be entitled to half. And he worked at a hedge fund at that point. He had worked at another fund and sold that fund. And I. You know, when you. You're not entirely conscious of things, but your brain knows that he had probably accumulated some wealth. I didn't know how much, and there was a big, very, very limited chance that he had put my name on any of those accounts. He was also sending me balance sheets at that point, which seemed to emphasize my family's wealth, even though it wasn't my money. And so I had a sense that he was creating a story where he would keep all of his assets. And I started to realize, really worry about that.
- [55:05]
Dani Shapiro
We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. In the weeks that follow, Belle remains on Martha's Vineyard as the pandemic settles in. The world is quiet. And in some ways, that quiet protects her. There are no big gatherings, no crowded dinners, just long daily walks that become a kind of lifeline as she moves through the shockwave of what's happened. But even in isolation, news travels. The Vineyard is a small community, and Belle begins to feel the subtle shift that often follows a divorce. Friends circling the wagons, stories forming before she even has time to process her own. Slowly, she realizes that others are beginning to write the narrative of her life. And if the story is going to be told truthfully, she will have to tell it herself.
- [56:08]
Belle Burden
It felt like I went overnight from being a part of something to being something different, being something that people were not sure how to deal with. And I'm not sure if I were encountering someone in my position, I would have been any different. I always want to make clear there was incredible kindness, People really going out of their way to move towards me, to embrace me. But there were some less kind moments and some commentary about who should remain a member of the club, that kind of thing. And it was really painful. I think I had had these sort of pillars of how the structure of my life, my husband, then my financial security, then his family stopped speaking to me, and then I encountered the community as they came back for the summer, and then also felt very unsure of my place there suddenly. And, you know, I don't want to sound too sorry for myself. There are definitely a lot worse things that people go through in life, but it was a really strange and destabilizing time. But while that was happening, while these kind of pillars were crumbling, this part of myself that I did not know existed came out, which was first appeared when he said to me a week in that we should tell people that the divorce is mutual, that it's amicable. And I knew instantly when he said it that I was not going to comply with that storyline because it felt like lying about it or covering it up was going to make this unsurvivable for me. The only way through it was going to be me being truthful about it. I was emotionally bleeding, and I could not handle a conversation with someone without being open about that. So it was like I had this crumbling and at the same time, this kind of, like, emergence of a very different side of me.
- [58:10]
Interviewer
Yeah, no, that's. It's so striking. And then that also ties into your beginning, after 30 years to write again, and you have this burning desire to start setting words on the page, to return to that first love of yours. And also maybe bel. Like what you're describing, the same impulse to. Or instinct to say, he left me. Here's the truth. Right. Or here's my story. Nobody else is going to tell the story. That is not my story. And so you begin doing that.
- [58:51]
Belle Burden
Yes. And I think it was a month after he left. I had to file something in court for one of my legal cases. And I think I was a Mess at it at first, but putting words to a page, then that brought me back to life a little bit, and I started writing it. It was for myself alone. I wanted to write down exactly what happened. It felt like there were all these whispers and narratives out there that were not mine, that were twisted in some way that were not the truth, and I wanted to write the truth of it. And then when I wrote it down, something happened where I really started getting interested in the art of it again and in building suspense. When does the phone call come in? When? How do you end it? How do I keep it? How do I stay a reliable narrator, not being too angry, not being too building of a case against him? So all those things, I started getting interested in that.
- [59:51]
Dani Shapiro
At a point during her writing, Bell looks up the submission guidelines for Modern Love, the New York Times column devoted to personal essays about the complexities of love and relationships, and decides to see if she can compress her story into that format. She signs up for a memoir writing class, just observing, at first saying very little. She's afraid that sharing her work will create another experience like the one she had her freshman year of college. But she summons her courage, and in the next session, she reads her piece aloud. It's emotional, but the room feels safe and supportive. It is safe and supportive. When the class ends, Belle sends the essay to Modern Love. Not expecting much, the column receives thousands of submissions, and almost none are chosen. But somehow, hers rises out of the pile. The essay will be published, and almost immediately, it will go viral, resonating with readers who recognize something in her story. For the first time, Belle will feel like she's telling her own version of events, reclaiming the narrative that others had begun shaping around her. But before this can happen, before she can truly find, exhume her voice, another story is unfolding. James is now officially filing for divorce and asks the court to enforce the prenup. When Belle confronts him, stunned by the suddenness of it all, his response is cool, almost bureaucratic. He insists he didn't leave her. He simply changed residences. Another attempt, Bell realizes, to rewrite what has happened.
- [61:38]
Belle Burden
A total rewrite. And that happened a number of different times, where he just changed it into something that served him. Really, that was, you know, everything is fine. This is fine. This is normal. Kids are fine. I didn't actually leave you. I just changed locations, changed residences, and, you know, the implication is, why are you so upset? Why are you so confused? Why are you making this into something bad as, like, a hysterical woman, kind
- [62:09]
Interviewer
of that trope yeah. And he also continues to want no custody. He gets an apartment that the kids would never be able to stay in. And he's like, well, the kids are
- [62:19]
Dani Shapiro
never going to stay here.
- [62:20]
Interviewer
I don't want custody. I don't want vacations. And he's in a world where people are saying to him, yeah, they're old enough, it's okay. You know, you can just have dinner with them once a week.
- [62:28]
Belle Burden
It was stunning to me because as a kid of divorce, I really wanted 50 50, even though that would be have its own pain. And so delivered a 5050 agreement to him. And it came back like the heaviest black line with all of the time taken out, dinner on Thursday nights, which ended pretty quickly. And our youngest was 12, which is not a baby, but she really wanted a room there. And that was really painful for her that she could not have a bedroom there. And I really tried to convince him of what is to be gained by living with kids. You know, you learn so much about them when they're making a smoothie in the kitchen or taking a shower in your bathroom or whatever it is waiting up for them at curfew. And he just didn't want to do it. He really felt that that part of his life was over, that they were fully formed human beings, is what he said.
- [63:20]
Interviewer
The other thing that you then learn during this, because you're going to go to trial after being someone who just was so constitutionally unable to fight back in your marriage, in your life, you had not inherited the burden. Fiery temper. This was not your nature. You fight back and there's going to be a trial, and so there's discovery. And you then see what James is. You had some sense, but you then really see what his earnings have been and the wealth that he's accumulated over the course of these decades. And you're right, he had not hidden it. I had chosen not to look. I had chosen not to know.
- [64:03]
Belle Burden
It was a real blow to me. Like, it's called discovery. And it was really a discovery for me because I had not kept track. I had not checked. I had not read the tax returns. And there it was, staring me in the face that he had accumulated all these assets and I would have no part of them under our prenup, and
- [64:23]
Interviewer
that he was going to enforce the prenup or requesting that the prenup be enforced in the sense that he was going to insist on the 50% of both properties that you had purchased. And, you know, and what's interesting there, too, is that there was no earthly Reason for this financially? No reason whatsoever for him to be asking for 50% of your residences?
- [64:53]
Belle Burden
No, it would. I always think about that. It would have been very easy for him, really, to let me keep those and give me financial security, but that was not something that he could tolerate. So we went up to the wire with me being deeply, deeply afraid that I would lose both homes because I didn't have enough money to buy them out, so I would have had to sell them. And now as I talk about this, I'm fully conscious of how privileged I am, and even in those circumstances, in much better shape than most women going through divorce. But at that time, I couldn't see that. I just felt such fear because I was trying to keep my kids lives stable. I was trying to make sure that I could be able to support them. I was trying to get through Covid. I was trying to keep the structures of our life together in some way. And it felt really just awful also to lose the things that my father and my grandfather had given to me.
- [66:02]
Dani Shapiro
Just an hour before the trial is set to begin, James makes an offer to settle. But the terms are absolute. If Belle questions anything, if she pushes back at all, the deal disappears and the trial moves forward, where Belle knows she could lose everything. The negotiation happens almost entirely by email, outside the usual protections of the courtroom. Once again, the dynamic of control is unmistakable. James can appear generous, but only if he remains firmly in charge of the outcome. As long as he's in control, then he can be magnanimous. As he says, Belle understands the stakes immediately. Instead of fighting every detail, she focuses on what matters most. Keeping the apartment, the house, and securing support for their children. In that moment, survival means narrowing the fight to what will allow her life and her children's lives to. To continue.
- [67:04]
Belle Burden
It was like I was just threading the needle, trying to stay very, very calm to get to that point and conceding on things that I knew would not be critical for me and not giving in on things that I knew were essential for me. So I had to be just very mature and very, very focused. And we did. We literally signed the agreement 45 minutes before, before we were supposed to appear in front of the judge for this trial. That would not have gone well for me.
- [67:33]
Interviewer
Do you think that was James endgame all along?
- [67:37]
Belle Burden
It's hard to know. I don't know if something changed for him, if someone convinced him to not do this, but if it was a negotiating tactic, it worked because it completely brought me to my knees and put me in a position Where I could have no hope of any leverage or any hope of any settlement from him in terms of his assets.
- [68:05]
Dani Shapiro
In July of 2022, the divorce is finalized. Of course, before this moment, Belle had already written the essay that would change everything, her modern love piece for the New York Times. At the time she first submitted it, the editors asked for something that felt impossible. She would need to share the essay with James to fact check it with him before publication. During the divorce, that request felt unthinkable. The idea of asking James for permission, of handing him any control over her writing, meant the piece had to be shelved. But then the divorce proceedings are over. It's done. The legal battle is behind her, the marriage officially finished, and for the first time, Belle feels she can step forward on her own terms. She shows James the essay not out of obligation, but because the story is hers to tell.
- [69:01]
Belle Burden
I show it to him because I could not let it go. I just was like, I let it go for two months. I thought, I cannot show it to him. He will really refuse, and the Times won't publish it. And then, why would I take that risk? But I just could not let it go. I really wanted to see this in the paper. And so I sent it to him. I said, I started writing again. I really want to publish this. I was very careful with my words. And he didn't answer for a while, for about 10 days. And he first said that he was scared to read it, and then he said that he read it. It was good. Hard to read. I'm supportive. And I took a screenshot and sent it to the Times editor, and it was published two weeks later.
- [69:46]
Interviewer
There's this beautiful moment where you imagine your maternal grandmother or babe with you during this time, energetically, or just in your memory with you. And you imagine babe saying to you, be brave. Claim it, say it. Break the cycle. And that's such a powerful, powerful thing, because, yes, you do come from tremendous privilege. And, you know, as a society, somehow that becomes like, well, then everything is okay, and life doesn't work that way at all. And the breaking the cycle, a combination of things, of maternal absence, of women contending with infidelity again and again and again, you know, for generations, and feeling almost like it's just part of their cross to bear, or the way it is to be with a man you love. And this was on you. It was thrust upon you, but it was on you that you were going to be the one to be brave
- [70:52]
Dani Shapiro
and claim it and say it and break the cycle.
- [70:54]
Belle Burden
It was strange to me that she was so present for me. My grandmother, during starting in the first days after James left, really like she was speaking to me as I slept in some way. And I wrestled even in the first couple months about. I thought I had changed my family trajectory by marrying someone so steady and calm compared to my mother and grandmother, who married very public figures, very dynamic, charming people who were unfaithful in a serial way. And they had been taught and had taught for their daughters that we are meant to stay quiet about it, to be graceful, to keep private things private, but also really to protect the man in the story, to protect his belief in his own importance, to make sure their reputations weren't tarnished. And I grew up with that in my bones, you know, I grew up with that being how you interacted with men like that. And so here I was, having repeated this family legacy in a spectacular way, but somehow a surprise to me and everyone around me. I was not going to do that. And as I said clear from the very beginning, I was not going to do that. And then clear when I really could not let go of publishing modern love and then eventually to write this longer book, that I was going to do this differently for myself because I think these things live in you and keeping them secret really is corrosive, but also to hopefully, and I can't promise it'll work, but hopefully change that pattern for my kids.
- [72:40]
Dani Shapiro
When Bell's memoir Strangers, is published in January, something extraordinary happens. The book doesn't simply arrive in the world, it explodes into it. Almost overnight, it lands at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, a rare debut that few books ever achieve. For someone who has long thought of herself as private, careful, non confrontational, the moment feels both surreal and and deeply validating because what the world is responding to is the voice Belle fought so hard to claim. After years of silence, control, and others shaping the narrative of her life, she has finally written the story in her own words. And now that voice, once tentative, once hidden, is reaching readers everywhere, opening the question of what comes next and who Bel might become in the years still ahead.
- [73:40]
Belle Burden
It feels like a strange combination of things because I am being challenged to be a public person, to speak at events, to have conversations like this, to really use my voice and articulate myself and put myself on the page in a very raw and open way. And so now when I meet people, they know a lot about me. And this is hard. I did an event last night where my face was just bright red the entire time. So it feels like this very strange position to have put myself in by choice. But at the same time, as uncomfortable as that is, it is this incredible thing for me as a quiet person to have this connection with humanity all over the world, but then up close too in person, that feels incredible. And also I just felt driven, like on a clear mission that this will help people. And I don't mean in a self help way. I mean in a way where I felt so alone and so filled with shame when this happened that I longed for a text like this. I longed for company and in it to feel less alone in it. I don't think my book's going to save anybody, but I think I longed for this connection and that my hope is that the book will make other women feel less alone in this and other types of loss and things that happen that you don't expect in life. So it has felt like this tide of support, which also feels really wonderful. And as far as 10 years, I'm hoping in six months or less that some of this will die down. I feel very lucky for it. It's wonderful. But that it will die down and that I can get back to writing. Because if 10 years from now I am a writer and that's my life, in addition to hopefully still being a lawyer, that to me is the most like, exciting thing. It's so hard, as you know. But that that could be my life and that my life is expanding as I56 now, if I'm 66 and I'm writing, I just think that would be the greatest thing.
- [76:01]
Dani Shapiro
Here's Belle reading one last passage from her remarkable memoir, Strangers.
- [76:11]
Belle Burden
I don't know how long he stayed with the woman with the alliterative name or if she is still in his life. I don't know if he cheated throughout our marriage or if she was his first and only affair. I don't know if he made the decision to leave suddenly after being caught or if he carefully planned his exit for years. I don't know what role the pandemic played. I don't know how much of it was about money. I don't know how much of it was about me. I don't know why he left. I don't think I ever will. I still think maybe there will be a final act in the play, an end to the story when I am given my answer. But the years go by without one. There is only silence.
- [77:06]
Dani Shapiro
Family Secrets is a production of iHeartradio. Molly Zakur is the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer. If you have a family secret you'd like to share? Please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear on an upcoming episode. Our number is 1-888-SECRET-0. That's the number zero. You can also find me on Instagram aniryter. And if you'd like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast, check out my memoir, Inheritance.
- [77:56]
Belle Burden
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
- [78:01]
Dani Shapiro
listen to your favorite shows.
- [78:03]
Jacob Goldstein
Jacob this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive, and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single, affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out odoo@o d o o.com. that's o d o o.com at CVS
- [78:48]
CVS Representative
it matters that we're not just in your community, but that we're part of it. It matters that we're here for you when you need us, day or night, and we want everyone to feel welcomed and rewarded. It matters that CVS is here to fill your prescriptions and here to fill your craving for a tasty and, yeah, healthy snack. At cvs, we're proud to serve your community because we believe where you get your medicine matters. So Visit us@cvs.com or just come by our store. We can't wait to meet you. Store hours vary by location.
- [79:24]
Kal Penn
Hey everyone, it's Kal Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode, I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your punch guests.
- [79:52]
Podcast Announcer
Paramount plus is now the home of all your BET favorites.
- [79:56]
Belle Burden
What?
- [79:56]
Podcast Announcer
Yes, with all new episodes of Tyler Perry's Divorce Sisters you've always liked, a little drama, plus a whole new world of movies like Gladiator 2. Now I will control an Empire original series like the Shy Just make sure we protect each other and live sports like UFC.
- [80:13]
Belle Burden
Welcome to the History.
- [80:15]
Podcast Announcer
New home, same family. Your BET favorites are now on Paramount Plus. Subscribe now.
- [80:22]
Belle Burden
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [80:25]
CVS Representative
Guaranteed Human.