Belle Burden Told Her Story On Her Own Terms

The reason why the book is so popular is that you didn't get to it. And so many women haven't gotten to it. Exactly. I think that's right. Yeah, and what changed it for me is shifting the focus because I wasn't going to it was like trying to get blood from a stone. I wasn't going to get it from him. So I had to shift the focus to myself. My stepmother's a family therapist and she uses this trick where you picture him and myself on a stage and the spotlights on him and I have to move it in my brain from him to me. Okay, that's really important. And I just wanted to say as I was reading it. I was thinking you did this as a memoir originally as a article and then now a book but you did as a memoir about your life and you know, going through analyzing what had happened in your marriage, but it becomes sort of a manual. I think for other women who are going through it. First of all, you mentioned your stepmom in the book. I remember when she tells you that divorce is worse than death and at first you didn't seem to agree. Did you come to realize differently or think differently about that? Divorce is worth the worse than death. I know a lot of you who are going through it have been through it feel that way. Yes. I think it's hard for me to say that because I watched her lose my father and how horrible that was to be a widow and she's a therapist. Yes. And she told you she told me and she believes that it's worse because he is out there living a different life and I had to really look back at our love story and reevaluate it and and feel that rejection which is so painful. Yeah, but my children still have a father and a lot of you know, when there's death there that people lose important people to that. Yeah, I understand that and I know a lot of people are going to challenge it. But what what what what I think she meant and I have said that to my friends too. Yeah, this is worse than death because if your husband had died you come to accept that he is dead and nothing's going to change and you couldn't have changed that. Yes, and your narrative can stay the same and your narrative can say the same if your husband betrays you suddenly leaves you. You're still left with all the why's and the why's and the why's and a lot of shame to a lot and a lot of shame a lot of shame. So tell us why you were feeling shame when you're not the one who walked out on your family. I felt it so intensely. I really felt so much shame as I re-entered the community that I'm a part of there. I felt like I was I had failed and keeping my husband interested in me loving me. I'd failed and keeping my family intact. I felt like I was less than all these other women who had stayed married and I think for me there are so many people who have been through this. But when you're going through it, you're not aware of that. You feel like you are the only person this has happened to and you feel so isolated and page 145 you write. I felt a deep sense of embarrassment about it. James was the one who had an affair who walked out but the shame had become mine. I had made it mine. I was an abandoned wife a woman rejected by her husband a woman who had failed to keep her family together. I would be the outsider. I think a lot of women particularly in your social circles think this I would be the outsider among all the married people all the intact families all the women. All the women who were wanted by their husband. Yes, and it was it was that was so deeply hard for me and I happen to be in a community where everyone was married. I was I felt like the only person who was not married. And so I and you kind of cross over from one day to the next from being a part of something to being different to not being a part of that and your ex-husband wanted you to tell everyone that the separation was mutual. But what stands out for me and I think it's going to be so helpful to so many of you hearing the story is that you didn't hide you were embarrassed and all the things that we just said, but you didn't hide you would go up to people in your social circle and say out loud. I would say my husband left me. I don't know why and I am in agony and the moment that he asked me for it to be to say it was amicable. He tried to tell me it would be better for me. I felt this full-bodied certainty that I could not do that that I could not lie about it that I would not survive this if I tried to lie about it. So when I ran into people I just said it and I never stopped saying it and some people could handle it and some people could not when did you make the decision to do that the moment? He said I wanted to watch it. Yes, and that was only a weekend and I just knew I couldn't do it which is contrary to my personality. I'm shy. I'm very private, but I just knew I could not spin a false narrative about this. This was what was happening to me. What was happening to my kids? Okay, so you are everyone has their own social circles and you know, whether it's your school or your church or your community or your girls club your book club yours happens to be in Martha's Vineyard and nearly two years after your divorce. The New York Times published an essay was I married to a stranger? Why did you want to write that article? It was in their modern love column. It was a modern love column me too about a year after he left when we were moving towards divorce. I felt like there were so many different narratives about what had happened including from him. Okay, go. Okay. Let's stop this for a second. I just want to ask you so when you go up to someone and you say when you make the decision you're going to say James has left me and I don't know why and I'm in agony. I'm sure people didn't know what the hell to do with that a lot of people did not. Yes, and I understand. I'm not sure I would have known what to do with it. I'm not sure I would have worried. It's red, right? Oh, everyone was talking about it people. This was hot you walk into a room and everybody is talking about it and people some people are uncomfortable with it. I had a couple of men that I knew well turn away from me and walk away from me without saying hello. And on the other hand some people really move towards me and it's taught me a lot about how to respond to people someone who's going through anything anything. That's a sudden change or a difficult thing. I had people stop me on the street and say I'm so sorry. You're going through this or another woman who grabbed me by the shoulders and said I'm going to take care of you and it's it was such a beautiful thing. It really lifted me up, but the there were harder reactions to and I think for all those people. People bring their own family histories to these things and their reaction is is definitely influenced by that when the article first came out. Tell us about the reaction you I think I can't remember where you were and I was on I was on Martha's Vineyard. It came out on June 30th. Yeah, 2023 and I was so excited because I had wanted to be a writer when I was a teenager and I when I started trying to write down exactly what happened. I got very interested in the art of it again, and when it was picked I just thought oh my God. This is incredible. So I felt this pride and excitement and it really some people were incredibly congratulatory and supportive and it for other people. It made them very uncomfortable that I was speaking about this and writing about it and for some I think it made them they were more critical of me writing about it than of him leaving. Wow, which really surprised me even accusing you of being a bad mother. Yeah, which was really painful for me because I had put myself through that same question. Am I doing something harmful to my kids by telling the truth by telling the story by exposing the story by exposing the story about their father. They knew everything in the story. But there was this idea that you should never ever speak these stories out loud because it harms your children by harming their father and that it's just not something we talk about. We keep private things private and I from the beginning from the moment. He asked me to say that it was amicable. Yeah, I have always felt like being open and honest about this was my path forward. There was just going to be no other path and open honesty and doing it in a way that was not vindictive.