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- [00:07]
A
Hello, bookcasers. It is February 12, which means, Hope you're getting things ready for your sweetheart or you're ready to treat yourself, because you don't need to have somebody on Valentine's Day. And so I am Kate. I'm half of the Kate and Charlie that makes the bookcase. And I'm waving even though you can't see it.
- [00:23]
B
And he is Charlie Gibson, the Charlie part of Kate and Charlie. We do welcome you. Valentine's Day is coming up. We hope you bought a lot of those sort of. Sort of little candy hearts that taste like cardboard, that have them.
- [00:36]
A
They taste like. They taste like flavored Tums.
- [00:38]
B
Right, Exactly. They're just awful, you know, but they're sort of a Valentine's Day.
- [00:42]
A
I wonder, do you think Tums, by the way, makes those. Do you think they're just like. Do you think that, like, we've been giving each other antacid for years and years and years with sweet messages on them, like, be mine, but also belch it out? I guess belch it out doesn't fit as well on the candy hearts as they should. But as I say, you can also also treat yourself. As a matter of fact, we're doing another memoir this week. Before you move on. Yes.
- [01:11]
B
I love the idea of the message on the little heart being antacid.
- [01:17]
A
I'm telling you, like, well, you know, let's belch it out together. You know, I think it's. It's a couple's activity. Anyway, we'll leave that word. We're doing another memoir this week, which, you know, I actually should throw it to you because you really read it first, but. Bell Burden Strangers, Memoir of a Marriage.
- [01:36]
B
We missed the boat on this one, and I apologize for that. It's only been out for a few weeks, but I knew about it in advance. I saw that it was the story of a marriage that broke apart, that the husband had an affair and he walked out. And I thought, well, that's sort of a common story, but this is so much more. Strangers is the name of the book. Belle Burton, B E L L E. Burton is the author and.
- [02:01]
A
B U R D E N. B.
- [02:02]
B
U R D E N. Right. And, you know, all of us, I think, have a moment in our lives when there's a before and there's an after, and you sort of look at life that way. She thought she was happily married 21 years into the marriage, and she gets a.
- [02:19]
A
Three kids.
- [02:20]
B
Three kids. She gets a call saying it's a. I think a voicemail message saying, you should know that your husband is having an affair with my wife. She confronts him. He says it doesn't mean anything. He sleeps well that night, and the next morning gets up and says, I'm out of here. You can have the house, you can have the summer house. She comes from money, a very well moneyed family in New York. He says, you can have the house, the summer house, you can have the kids. I don't want any of it. I'm out of here. And she feels all that time that it's been a happy marriage indeed. There's a paragraph in the book that sort of sums up the situation, and we asked her to read it.
- [03:01]
C
He never told me, not once, that he was discontent in our marriage, unhappy with me, or struggling in our life together. I wonder now, did I make up the love story, the tale of our commitment to each other, carrying it around under my arm like a prized book. I believed in that narrative, referring to it daily in my mind, telling others the story of how we met, how long we'd been married, confident that I was someone who had experienced true love, who had a marriage that was strong and happy. There was nothing tangible to refute it, no sign that the cord between us was broken or even fraying, no indication that he was unhappy. But what if the story I told myself wasn't true? What if he always had a different story?
- [03:51]
A
I think you put it perfectly. It's like, you know, it's that great Agatha Christie movie the Mirror cracked. You know, you've got your view on life, and then all of a sudden there's a huge crack in it. And you have the before the crack and after the crack. You know, I think there's such a myth of closure in these situations. And we talk about that as well when we talk to her. But, you know, you go, wait, this isn't for you. Why isn't it for you? Well, I don't know. It's not you, it's me. I mean, it's really like this book is a search for the answer of it's not you, it's me. And coming to the conclusion that, in fact, it wasn't her, it was him. And she has to move on and be enough and be a good mom and pick up the pieces and put everything back together with no answers. And this book is about how she's gonna move on from that. And it's beautifully written, as you can tell from the reading she just did.
- [04:41]
B
We talked a little bit about it. We had to cut it out, the interview. But I Talked to her about the fact when I was hosting Good Morning America and later anchoring the evening news on abc, there were two major rifts, reductions in force. And people would come into my office with 15 and 20 years experience in the network and say, why? Why have they eliminated my job? Why haven't they kicking me out of here? I've done good work. And my feeling was, yes, you have done good work. And I hope you walk out with that feeling that you didn't waste those 15 or 20 years. There's 300 people walking around the newsroom of the Washington Post right now who have just been laid off as the Post eviscerated their. Their staff. It's a great newspaper, Was a great newspaper. I hope we'll be again sometime. But those people are saying to themselves, I did good work, didn't I?
- [05:28]
A
What would I do? Really matter?
- [05:29]
B
Didn't I?
- [05:30]
A
I mean, did what? How is it that I am eliminate able now? Yes, but haven't been eliminable up until this point. Did my work stop being good?
- [05:38]
B
They want a story to be able to tell themselves that I didn't waste these years. Well, she's the same way in her marriage. She wants a story, something that explains what happened to her. And he won't give it to her. And I'm not sure he knows. And that's.
- [05:53]
A
I'm not sure he has one. No, I'm not sure he has one. And I think his. I think when he's saying it's not you, it's me, he really thinks that is providing her the comfort of knowing that it is not her. But it doesn't. I mean, it really just is. Anyway, so it's a great book and it's about the search for answers when answers never come and how to be enough without those answers.
- [06:16]
B
So here's our conversation with Bell Burton. The name of the book again is Strangers.
- [06:26]
A
Bell Burton, it is such an honor to have you in the bookcase. Your memoir, Strangers. I loved this book. But you ask a really important question in this book. You question yourself, you know, why you wrote the book. And you had a friend ask you who was questioning your motives. Was it therapy? Was it revenge? Was it catharsis? And you asked yourself in the book, would my friend be asking these questions of a male writer? Would I be asking myself these questions if I was a male writer? But then you never really answered the question. And I'm wondering, is it something we would ask a male writer or did you sort of make peace with that question?
- [07:02]
C
People ask me Those specific questions and those questions haunted me. I berated myself about them. Did I do this to hurt my ex husband? Am I a bad mother for doing this? Did I do it just for catharsis? Which is a word that really bothers me because it just implies that you are just so angry and you need to get this out of your system. And I don't think if I had been a man, someone would have asked me those same questions. They would have respected the writing. They would have respected it as art and literature, not as an emotional process. So now I've written a book, and those. Those questions still come up. People assume I've done it for revenge, that it is a spiteful effort. The one that is still hard for me, that I still struggle with, is whether this is good or bad for my kids. I think as mothers, we are always asking ourselves that question, every day, every hour. And when I walk myself through it, I do think being open and honest about what happened to us as a family in a way that hopefully will help them. But I can understand the perspective of people who think that you shouldn't do this, that you should not speak openly about their father in a way that is not flattering, which is interesting, because.
- [08:17]
A
We are a society, I think, that talks about owning our own story. You know, if there's a story to tell, you should tell it.
- [08:24]
C
That's a really interesting point, because we are told that. But I think most divorce stories that have been successful on screen were done by men. I think that divorce memoirs often end up being perceived as bitter. And there is a discomfort with women telling these kinds of stories about men. And it does go right up against the owning of your story. And I hope that this maybe nudges that forward a little bit.
- [09:02]
A
Modern divorce stories have so much to do with. I mean, when you read books like this, you see movies like this, so many of them attach the myth of closure.
- [09:10]
C
Yes, I've had people say that, you know, I wish there was a happy ending. And I say, but there is a happy ending. There is a happy ending in me finding writing again and me finding financial authority and me being okay on my own. But there's discomfort about that. And I think people want an answer. And it is very frustrating to not have an answer. It's very frustrating to me to not have an answer. But I think we often don't, and not just about this subject. We often don't know why people do things, why we lose certain people, why. Why life takes some really sharp turns. Part of what I wanted to do with the book was really reconstruct those 20 years. When it ends like this, all of it seems to get erased. Our family story becomes only about that, oh, he walked out on her. And my children's story about their parents becomes only that he walked out on her. They got divorced and there were 20 years. We were, I believe, very much in love for a period of time. I was the whole time. It changed for him at some point, I don't know when. We had many happy years as a family. We constructed a life together that really mattered. Those memories are real. And I do think that if you work at it, you can hold both things in your head. You can keep the photo albums, you can keep the wedding album. You can believe in that and believe it ended badly and that that person, their feelings changed or they. They a switch went off and there's a before and after for them. But it doesn't have to change everything that came before and to not have it all tainted.
- [10:50]
A
You talk about how much work you had to do to hold these two narratives in your mind. The happy family and the family that broke up. How do you then teach your kids to try to hold those two things in their minds in a healthy way?
- [11:04]
C
I talk about happy memories, vacations that we took, meals that we cooked, things their dad loved to do with them. So I mention those in our conversations. But I think the harder work is trying to walk that line between acknowledging for them the reality of what has happened and in my case, that they don't spend time at their dad's house. And be very plain and honest about that without saying, your dad's such a jerk. And that is really hard. And they're. They're different. I'm a kid of divorce, two divorces. And I hated it when my parents were unkind about each other. And I certainly have my moments. I am not perfect. Also, not to romanticize him or, you know, make him bigger than he was, but to talk about it in a sense, like your dad was all in. He loved you guys so much. Remember when we made the linguine with clams? And remember when we went to Hawaii? And remember how he helped to you with your hockey practice, like lacing your skates? But something is going on with him. I don't understand it. And he is not able to create a home for you. And that is about him and not about you. And that is really hard. But to still kind of weave the two things together.
- [12:31]
B
This book arose out of a piece that you wrote about modern love in the new York Times. And then you got such a reaction. It grew into the book. Your youngest child, if I compute correctly, was 12. Your youngest daughter was 12 at the time you wrote that piece for the New York Times. You must have gone to the kids and said, I'm going to write something about this. Were they in favor?
- [12:53]
C
Well, they, she was 12 in 2020 when her dad left and the Times came out in 23. But I, I, it was accepted by the times in 22. So she was about 14. So they were about 14, 17 and 20. And I did go to them and they had a variety of reactions. One of them just was like, I don't want to hear about it. Do whatever you want. One was a little bit nervous and one said, this is what happened to us. You need to publish this. And so it was, it was a range and it's complicated for them. It's, it's, I'm not going to pretend it's easy, but it's a lot for them. They're protective of their dad and.
- [13:32]
A
Don'T.
- [13:33]
C
Want to hurt him and they don't want me to hurt him, so, and they want to support me.
- [13:41]
B
So we're going to take a pause at this point and we'll come back and talk some more about Bell Burton. One of the questions that fascinated me is we mentioned this all arises from a piece that she wrote in the New York Times, a short piece that they call Modern Love, I think in their paper every week. And it got such a response that she turned it into a book. But the interesting part is, as you'll hear, the Times said to her, we won't publish this story that you've written about your breakup of your marriage and your husband unless he gives permission, which I thought is the last thing he'd do. But he did. And you'll hear our discussion about that when we come back.
- [14:24]
D
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- [15:28]
A
You publish this piece in Modern Love. It gets a tremendous response. And you think, okay, people come to you and say, hey, let's write a book. Are you relieved or are you like, oh, God, I have to sit down and write a whole book that digs to the bottom of my emotional pond.
- [15:45]
C
I got calls from two editors saying, this needs to be a book. You need an agent. And then I was talking to a friend and he said, well, you're not gonna write a book like you've reached the end of the road. And I felt a full bodied certainty that I was going to write a book. I was like, oh, no, no, I am writing a book. And I kind of surprised myself too, because I was. And I said, I have a lot more to say. And I think there were. It's not. At that point, it was not just the story anymore. There were different themes that I wanted to get out there, different things I was experiencing as a divorced woman that I felt like I did not have enough texts that reflected that. So I felt at that moment, on.
- [16:27]
B
A mission, you used the word I was all in to the marriage. You loved this man. You loved him with your whole heart for a long time. My question is a, do you sense now? Was he ever all in? And baby, can you ever trust again? Can you be all in ever again? Or will you always wonder about motive and about commitment and about sincerity?
- [17:00]
C
I think those are really good questions and I struggle with both. I believe he was all in for a period of time. I believe that he loved me and wanted this life. I think that it changed at some point, maybe, or where my head rests is he was. He was in some way playing a role for himself and wanted that role and wanted to be husband and father. And at some point he took off that costume and left the stage and could not do it gracefully with me. And once he did, it was just. He was out. So I. I don't know if I'll ever know the answer to that question. I think I like to believe that he was. He did really love me for a period of time. And as far as trusting again, I am very guarded. I am very resistant to starting in a relationship. If someone asks me if I want to have dinner with someone who they love, I will go, but it will be hard for me. But I think the positive of it is that my ex was always just a little bit removed. And people ask if I see red flags now, and I still can't see red flags. Emotion. I see red flags financially, but not emotionally. Except that he was always just a little bit removed, always a little bit distant, always a little bit a piece of him that I just did not quite have a grasp on. And that I think was appealing to me maybe for reasons from my childhood or that I just liked that little bit of mystery. And I think when someone like that, there can be something really bubbling under the surface. And if I am in another relationship, I do not want that. I want total emotional intimacy. My father and my stepmother had that. My brother and his wife have that. I have many friends who have that. And I think if I do it again, it'll be very different.
- [19:02]
B
So are you surprised this book has taken off? And I'm pleased it has. Not so much for your sake, but just because it's a story that I think resonates with so many people that have had shocks in their life and basically their lives have turned on a dime.
- [19:19]
C
It feels like this groundswell of support from women predominantly, but also from men. There are a lot of men that have written to me, and I'm trying to get a handle on what it is exactly that's resonating for some people. It's that they've been through the same thing or felt the alienation, isolation of divorce, or there were a child in this situation, or they're an older generation that has seen this happen and have no one talk about it, or it's a younger generation who's not yet gotten married and see lots of lessons in it. So I think it's all of those things. But I also think it's. It's a. I don't think women are often rewarded for telling these very honest stories about male behavior.
- [20:03]
B
One of the things that interested me was when you originally submitted that piece to the Times, as you mentioned, you submitted in 22. They accepted it, but it didn't publish till 23 because the times said he has to sign off, that he has to accept the idea that this would be published. I was surprised that he did. Were you?
- [20:23]
C
I was both shocked that the Times said I had to do it. I was really like, I thought he would get a fact check call. I was shocked that he had to approve the piece. I thought, how can any woman do this if the man has to approve it? And I gave up on the whole thing when I heard that because I thought he would never approve It. And then I just could not let this go. So I sent it to him. And it took 10 days, but he finally said, it's good, it's sad. I approve something like that. And I think that part of him wanted to support me in what I wanted to do. And I very much wanted to do this, that I'd made that clear. But I think also he didn't really see anything wrong with the narrative. I think in his heart, he believed that men are allowed to leave in this way. That marriages end and you can do it in whatever way you want to.
- [21:15]
B
Does a part of you still love him? And do you think since he never remarried, perhaps, does he still love you?
- [21:23]
C
It's a very good question, and I'm glad you asked it. I still very much love the man that I was married to. I love that guy very much. And it's still there. And I still dream about him, this guy. I don't. I don't feel in love with him. And it was very confusing for a long time. Cause they looked like the same person. But now I really separate them. But I miss that guy. He disappeared. He really disappeared. I have fantasies that he still loves me. I don't have fantasies of him coming back because I am long past that. But I have fantasies, often a new narrative in my head that he is heartbroken and he regrets it. And he gave up the love of his life. And that he'll. You know, that this is heartbreak for him. And I have to be reminded by friends, by therapists. He does not. He does not have sentiment for me. He does not have nostalgia for me. He does not have love for me. And that is really hard to remind myself of day after day. And that's completely separate from me publishing a book. It was I. And I could see it when I would see him. I knew that my narrative was not true, that I. That this fantasy of him feeling what I felt, which is just total heartbreak and regret on his part, he did not feel so. But that's a hard one to let go of.
- [22:56]
B
It's a spoiler, and if you don't want to talk about it, we won't put it in the show. But do you want to describe what that moment at the Brooklyn Bridge was?
- [23:04]
C
Sure. I don't mind spoilers. I think there's been a lot of spoilers out there. So I'm divorced at that point. I have started writing again. I have moved to a different space, I would think, emotionally. But it's still. It still really hurt. And I had been through A number of graduations where I see him and I sit next to him and I still feel this longing for the person who was my husband, who, the moment he walked out the door, I was still in love with him. And took a while to catch up, but. So I'm walking near the Brooklyn Bridge, I'm a big walker. And I hear someone call my name, yelling, bell, Bell. And I turn and I see this handsome man across the way. And he is waving at me like we are long lost friends. And I'm thinking, who is this calling to me? And I realize it's my now ex husband. And I look at him and, and I think that scene shows first that he just has a different perception of the whole thing. It is, there's nothing really that bad. He's very cheerful about it. We are, we are old friends. And then in that moment, I also look at him and I think I just don't know him anymore. I don't know anything about his life. I don't know why he did this. I, I, this is a Stranger to Me, which is part of the title. But then I also realize as he's looking at me like he thinks he knows me, he has no idea who I am anymore. He has no idea how I have grown, how I have changed, how I've become someone just who is in charge of their life. And then I turn with my friend Rachel and I turn to just walk away. And I don't feel that pull or longing or absolute destruction that I had felt in the past when I saw him. And out of the corner of my eye, he is still waving like, wait, like, where are you going? And it was a moment for me because it really, it showed me how far I'd come, really. Bell Burden.
- [25:05]
A
Thank you so much. The book's strangers. I loved the book. I think it's an important book for anybody that's left searching for answers in.
- [25:13]
C
The breakup of their own family.
- [25:15]
A
I highly recommend it to folks. Thank you so much for sitting with us and thank you for sharing such a difficult story and for facing questions about your motivation and the ending and all of the tough questions. It's an honor that we had you sitting in the bookcase for a while.
- [25:30]
C
I so enjoyed it. This is like my favorite thing. Thank you so much. And I love what you're doing for books. I love this podcast.
- [25:41]
A
You know, I think you said it so beautifully when you finished the book and called me and said I had to read it, which is hard cause I'm going through a divorce myself. It was a hard read for me. But you said it so beautifully, I think, which is you said, you know, throughout the book I kept asking, why is she writing this? Why is she writing this? Which again, I think is interesting in our discussion that we talk about whether we ask a man that question, but it came down to whether or not she stuck the landing. And she really stuck the landing. We talk about that in the interview, but she really did. In the end, she really writes that this is for her kids. This is so that her kids never walk into a marriage with blinders on or thinking that mystery is sexy. And I think she does that beautifully. And afterwards I was like, oh, that's why you're writing it. Oh, I hope your kids understand and appreciate the great sacrifice and the great emotional meltdown you had to dig into in order to make this book work.
- [26:32]
B
So it's anything but the kind of book that you've read before. I think it is not. It just leaves that question of why. You always need the answer to the question why? And if you don't get it, what does that do to your psyche? Anyway, we couldn't recommend it more strongly. It's done very well. It's on the New York Times bestseller list and I think with good cause. I'm surprised it's there, but I think it's because people can respond to it. So personally, yeah, I've been through something like that and I want to know why. Anyway, we thank her. As you said at the close, she answered all the questions that were probably too personal. But you go through the journey with her in this book and I think it's a really interesting journey.
- [27:18]
A
Very courageous.
- [27:18]
B
We'll keep you up to date on the folks who make this podcast possible. And at the end, a coda from Belle Burton.
- [27:25]
A
The book Case with Kate and Charlie Gibson is a production of ABC Audio and Good Morning America. It is edited by Tom Butler of TKO Productions. Our executive producer is Simone Swink. We want to make mention of Amanda McMaster, Sabrina Kohlberg, Arielle Chester at Good Morning America, and Josh Cohan from ABC Audio. Follow the bookcase wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to listen, rate and review. If you'd like to find any of the books mentioned in this episode, we have them linked in the episode description.
- [27:54]
C
I think that the great part of all this is my growth as a person. I don't think I was self actualized in my marriage. I think I always colored within the lines and I think one of the beautiful things that came out of this is that I was able to discover parts of myself that I thought were gone from the time I was a teenager. And so I recently saw this quote by Aeneas Ninh. And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a budget was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.