Hot Husband Leaves | Rich Frau Ex Publicly Ponders "Why?!"

Part 2 There was another woman, as there often is when men leave. Her husband called me the night of March 21 as I mopped the kitchen floor after dinner and left a voice mail message: “I’m sorry to tell you that your husband is having an affair with my wife.”

That night, my husband was apologetic and regretful, saying he loved me and that the affair meant nothing. But by dawn, as he announced his departure, he looked different, resolved. His green eyes were icy.

The rest of the story is filled with more clichés. He left the year I turned 50, the year he reached a pinnacle of professional success at work. He bought a sleek new Manhattan apartment, hired a well-known divorce lawyer, and treated me with a consistent lack of empathy or sentiment.

What’s different about my story is that my marriage exploded at the dawn of a pandemic. It was early in the crisis when he left. We were dousing our hands with Purell, wiping down packages, using gloves at the grocery store, but not yet wearing masks. We were facing many unknowns, including how deadly the virus was, how long schools would be closed, when we could expect a vaccine. We were scared, and I relished the safety of my marriage intensely. And then my husband was gone.

EI had a home, money, an isolated location to quarantine — I was safe by every measure. But my partner, who promised to protect me and our children, had disappeared overnight. The people who would have propped me up, fed me, helped with the children — my family and closest friends — could not get to me during lockdown. They wept with me on the phone, but I woke up every day facing the fear and pain on my own.

I decided not to drink, knowing that it would make me sadder, but I also found it hard to eat. Within weeks I had shed 20 pounds, the self I had come to know over two decades of pregnancies and family life.

I also had no information about my husband and why he had left us. After the generic statements about his unhappiness, he gave me nothing — no explanation for what was lacking in our marriage or in me, how long he had felt this way, or even a declaration of feelings for the woman he was seeing. He refused to see a therapist with me. Within a week, he had stopped answering my phone calls. His brother and sister also stopped communicating, saying that to support him, they could not be in contact with me.

Had life been normal, had we been in New York, had I been able to run into him on the street and make him look me in the eye, maybe I would have some understanding of what was happening. But I was on my island, and he was on his, and I knew nothing, only the shock of his disappearance.

Ironically, it had been my husband’s steadiness that made me fall in love with him. We met at a corporate law firm where he was a senior associate, and I was a junior associate assigned to his group in my second year. He was a great lawyer with a quick mind, able to supervise a dozen deals at a time, thoughtful and methodical in his left-handed markups of legal documents. He was tall, blonde and lean, a similar silhouette to my father. He wore suits and rolled up his shirt sleeves as he worked. He was a grown-up.

When he walked into my office, shut the door and kissed me, I was done for. He was intent on marrying me within weeks of that kiss, pledging to take care of me, to step into my dead father’s role as my protector. And we did marry, within the year, both of us (I still believe) very much in love.

My husband’s reserve was also appealing to me. The men in my family were moody and had tempers. My husband did not believe in yelling or even fighting. His voice was always low, often almost a whisper, and he refused to engage in an argument. Our home was calm, free from conflict, and that felt like a victory to me, a smug sense that I was living a superior life.

But a rebellious past lurked behind my husband’s calm exterior: teenage brushes with the law, trouble in school. There were many women in his wake and stories of some of them stalking him, unable to accept his rejection. con't

Part 3 This narrative was sexy to me, the former rebel dressed in a suit, the problem high school student landing at an elite law firm, the heartbreaker. But when I think about what happened, I think about this part of him. The bad boy in him shedding the choking uniform of husband and father as abruptly as he had adopted it.

Almost three years later, I still have no understanding of why my husband left. His strangeness only increased, becoming an adversary in the divorce process and, while kind with our children and occasionally in touch with me by text, more resolute in his desire not to share custody or daily parenting.

As the pandemic dragged on, there was so little social interaction and information flow that I heard nothing about him from anyone. I don’t know if the other woman is still important to him or if she didn’t matter at all. I don’t know if he cheated throughout our marriage or if the affair was his first betrayal. I don’t know if he changed abruptly or if I was sleeping with a stranger for two decades.

I could have hired a private investigator, could have called the husband of the woman he was seeing, could have pursued my in-laws for answers. But all these roads felt sordid, like I was trading my dignity for scraps of information. I had to figure out how to move forward without knowing.

To have empty spaces when you try to remember and make sense of your past feels like a form of amnesia. Or like watching the beginning and end of a movie, and missing the middle, essential pieces of the story.

I have no secret to share about how to move on without answers. I walked a lot, a form of meditation that made me feel like I was moving forward. I took on more legal work, cooked for my children, walked our dog, bought new rugs. And eventually, after many months, I found myself on a road that had less of a relationship to his, and I stopped looking backward and sideways, only ahead.

I sometimes see him from afar in our shared city neighborhood. He looks familiar, his posture and gait, his sandy blonde hair and orange sneakers, and my heart leaps a little at the sight of him. But then I remember he is a stranger, and I walk on.

THE END

I don't know how couples do it, sitting there getting fat and gray and watching each other get old. How can you fuck the same person over and over and over and still get excited?

I'd rather be alone.

There are so many layers in this piece. Times writers determine whether or not they want comments enabled. Hers are not, which is good because I would have been first on line.

I'm sure her ex is eye rolling while he gets blown in his summer house in Quogue.

[quote]Had life been normal, had we been in New York, had I been able to run into him on the street and make him look me in the eye, maybe I would have some understanding of what was happening. But I was on my island, and he was on his, and I knew nothing, only the shock of his disappearance.

This is folly. Most people who pull a runner like that have no way of explaining it to the family they've deserted because they don't yet (and may never) understand it themselves.

How do we know he is hot? There are no pics.

No glory holes on MV, that was the issue.

Did she publish this under her real name?

If so… yikes.

Lawyers are paid actors. Why would their lacking a soul surprise anyone, particular if they were juvenile delinquents?

In my opinion, this is the tale of a woman whose nurturing, affectionate and co-dependent nature led a seductive, ambitious and successful man who needed a stabilizing element in his personal life, to marry her because she would provide him with what he needed. Now that he doesn't need her and their children anymore, he has simply moved on.

Something tells me that he is a mild psychopath (he fits the profile: problematic as a youth, early brushes with the law, methodical and cold, emotionally detached, secretive and fixated on his goals, but not incapable of love and impulsive like a severe psychopath would be), and he's found something that makes him feel more fulfilled now that his main objective of becoming extremely successful at work, has been reached. In short, the children and she have already served their purpose, so he has pushed them aside and looked for a new set of goals to attain and a new set of instruments to use. That's why he doesn't even want joint custody of their children and while kind to them, he lives his life separately: they don't really matter anymore, or at least not enough for him to want to be an active part of their lives.

I am also shocked at how callous his own family have been towards the writer, simply excising her from their lives with the excuse of supporting the ex-husband. It isn't any wonder he is this icy and selfish if he has grown with such unfeeling, heartless and inhumane people. if something this serious happens, the least most people would do would be to try and offer some explanation, instead of saying 'we're on his side and thus, we're simply freezing you out - goodbye'.

While I must admit that I am annoyed at how out-of-touch and self-pitying this woman is (so, you suffered a lot being quarantined in your multi-million dollar Summer house in the Hamptons after your husband left you, and you've decided to deal with it by cooking, buying new rugs and deciding to work a little, even though you don't really need to? Boo-fucking-hoo!), I find her dignity, self-restraint and composure admirable. Most people, including myself, would have gone completely insane and would have demanded answers and wanted revenge, but she's taken it in stride and done her best to accept reality and move on... Then again, that is why her ex probably chose her: unlike his previous girlfriends, she is far too meek, passive and caring to stalk him and cause him any problems.

Finally, am I the only one who is creeped out by the fact that when he asked her to marry him, he said that he would take her father's place and protect her? That is just bizarre, and the fact that she was happy with it tells me that again, he selected her because he understood that it would be easy to control her and get her to provide him with what he wanted, because she is emotionally damaged.

The frau had daddy issues.

He was blindsided when I left but not a day goes by where I am not relieved I did not leave.

WTF? This sentence makes no sense. Did the writer write that and no one caught it?

The OP wrote that, not the author of the article, R12.

The not knowing can drive you crazy but the knowing doesn’t change nearly as much as you hope it will when you’re in the not-knowing position. The guy is still gone and his lies are still cold and glib.

“It doesn’t mean anything” is such a gem. So, the vows he took weren’t enough to hold him back from repeatedly grabbing a piece of ass that meant nothing to him? And he doesn’t want any kind of custody of his own children? Whatever her pain, she’s better off.

She’ll find somebody else to go the farmer’s market with to buy a rowdy spray of sunflowers to set on the table at which her daughter will serve gnocchi before they repair to the music room to play their cellos.

This story is why you NEVER give up your own career (I hope the author didn't), get a prenup (a good one protects both people), always be willing to go lower when the other person goes low.

Also, always get the best divorce attorney you can afford. Don't let emotion get in the way or crushing your ex and NEVER go along with a narrative that they choose, like "we just grew apart" when it comes to telling other people. Let everyone know what a cheating idiot the ex is, including the children.

Thank you, R13.

R14, you are right. Knowing won't change anything. Even if he said the old line, "It's not you, it's me," it wouldn't help her or the kids. My first thought was that, after being in lockdown with his wife and kids, he decided to live his true life as a gay man. I think I've been on DL too long.

She's a Vanderbilt, boo fucking hoo.

Belle is a descendant of Cornelius W. Vanderbilt, the railroad and shipping magnate, and a granddaughter of the late Babe Paley.

Oh dear. Buck up Belle.

R17 Amanda Burden’s daughter? Boo fucking hoo is right!

Very WASPY Henry Davis. Sherman McCoy-ish.

He has big ears and he does appear to be a sociopath...

Now, we need to see a pic of the cheating whore he was banging before we can decide who's right and wrong.

So hiring a private detective is undignified but this article isn’t?

I can’t imagine either family is happy about this article. It’s also very cruel to repeatedly state that the dad / spouse wants nothing to do with the kids.

But isn’t it fascinating how men can just saunter out and leave all the responsibility behind? Sure, this guy will likely need to cut a check but that’s fairly easy.

Thanks for the link, R17. I though that she was a poor girl with a dysfunctional family background who had been swept off her feet by a wealthier, more experienced man who had taken advantage of her naivete and vulnerability. But this is a rich person who has had everything handed out to her and is publicly shaming her ex-husband and his family in a very passive-aggressive way. I admit that I enjoy the plaintive, melancholic and despondent way in which she is basically exposing and humiliating him, but it's not as if she didn't have plenty of opportunities to find somebody else, given her money and status. In short, I don't feel compassion for her, but hats off to her for knowing how to be a catty bitch without looking like a harpy.

R20, that man is the human equivalent of ultra-processed white bread. She talks about him as if he had been some sort of mysterious, fascinating Adonis, but the only thing that comes to mind when looking at him is MEH. And yes R22, Flobelle (what kind of effing name is that?) has a bad case of horse face.

[quote]it's not as if she didn't have plenty of opportunities to find somebody else, given her money and status.

One's wealth, status and future prospects do not shield one from the pain of betrayal.

R23, she's probably doing this because he's refusing to give her what she wants in the divorce, and knows that publicly shaming is the only way in which he will be amenable to her demands. Also, I doubt their kids don't know what's happening - they're more than old enough to know how their parents are.

[quote]I can’t imagine either family is happy about this article. It’s also very cruel to repeatedly state that the dad / spouse wants nothing to do with the kids.

[quote]she's probably doing this because he's refusing to give her what she wants in the divorce

Was he a nothing before their marriage without her family and connections? Does he owe his career and current wealth potential to the leg-up marrying her provided? If so, he owed her a LOT.

As for the kids, while it's likely very damaging to the two youngest who are 15 and 12, she needs to control the narrative, especially if it's true. If he has the opportunity to be "fun" dad and can just pay for crap, she runs the risk of being alienated from the kids if she allows his version of events to be spread. He's already proven that she can neither trust or depend on him. He certainly doesn't seem to care about the kids. Why would she take the chance?

The kids are already going to be "damaged" - it's merely a question of what kind of damage and inflicted by which parent, not whether there will be emotional damage.

Judging from the wedding announcement, they’re both from fairly well-to-do families. Lots of divorces, though.

Husband looks “off,” can’t quite put my finger on it, but I would have avoided him. Psycho vibes.

Fun fact: I sub-let a row house on Capitol Hill when I was a summer associate in DC.

My “landlord” was a prissy, snotty little bitch who was in NY to be a Davis, Polk summer associate. It seems that firm has a type.

[quote] Husband looks “off,” can’t quite put my finger on it, but I would have avoided him. Psycho vibes.

I'll invoke the DL cliche "he looks like he was on the spectrum" here.

How was he a "nothing?" He was a partner when she joined the law firm. But hell yah, if women marry for money, nothing wrong with a guy attracted to an heiress.

OMG - I know how she feels.

He left her for another woman -- what's the big mystery? Happens all the time.

What's with all the angst and analysis?

Straight woman drama (for a change).

[quote]He left her for another woman

Right and better sex.

This guy had so many red flags from the beginning. I wonder what his siblings and parents relationships are like. I posted about my wealthy cheating brother on another thread. Our father was also a serial adulterer. Our parents divorced when we were teenagers. This is his second marriage. Another brother has been married four times (also has a history of infidelity). I would never want to marry into a family like mine. People choose to ignore red flags.

I don't think he's trying to portray himself as fun dad, it sounds like he wants nothing to do with his kids.

I do laugh at posters who think that money and status are going to win a woman a man. She isn't trying to attract a straight woman or a gay man. If she isn't hot looking to straight men then nothing else will matter, she will have few options to find someone else.

Ah, R32, my girlfriend left me for another years ago and I thanked God my dyke friends were there to listen to me be angsty and analyze, month after month.

It had never happened to me before and I’d never given the thought that it could happen a passing thought. I was gut-punched for a long, long time.

Or do you mean the analyzing we’re doing here? Schadenfreude is tasty! And we who do not swim in infinity pools of limitless riches just LOVE the pain of the wealthy. Especially when they write well.

And there’s something especially piquant in the fact that the story is common. All the cellos in the world won’t insulate you from the humiliation of being screwed around on just like the Walmart shopper with whom she heretofore seemed to have nothing whatsoever in common.

He's a complete sociopath and she's got more issues than a newsstand. The guy went into her office, closed the door and kissed her, then within weeks wanted to marry her and promised to take the place of her dead father?? And she found this romantic rather than alarm bells going off in her head?

She needs to get some heavy duty therapy or she'll keep picking really awful men again and again. And with a large inheritance and prominent family, she'll certainly have plenty coming after her.

R27 the kids were 15 and 12 in March 2020. They’re know at the ideal age to be drinking and drugging.

Looks like their nonprofit foundation has seen better days.

I wouldn't be surprised if big-earred Henry has decided to explore his "gay side" more openly...

I mean, come on, he had to get back to New York to get a good selection of dick

She got the 5,000 sf apt in Tribeca. 270 B’way 25B. What a vendetta she penned. I thought WASPs only did media for birth, wedding, and death announcements. Tacky.

Men like this are callous psychopaths disguised as human. The families they acquire, but do not ultimately want, are part of a carefully cultivated facade. They often drive their spouses mad due to their emotional detachment and ruthlessness when they leave - which they almost always inevitably do.

A few years back when still with Patti Florbelle. Do we think he was drinking towards the end? Who looks this beat in a corporate headshot?

Public shaming is underrated, I think. Particularly in this age of shameless, selfish, sociopathic behavior.

As socially connected WASPS (and he's a corporate lawyer in financial circles), this article does exactly what the cast-off wife intended it to: irretrievably damage his reputation personally and professionally. (I feel a bit bad for the 2 daughter caught in the crossfire, however.)

Team Belle all the way on this one.

He's no Michael Murphy.

The pandemic angle that she believes makes her story (sorry, "narrative") different from millions of other divorces is underwhelming, at least as she recounts it. Someone had an affair and wanted a new life. Rinse and repeat.

Standard Oil money on her her mother's side and (real) Vanderbilt money on her father's. Little sympathy here. I'm sure this hit piece article is the talk of a certain town.

Her mother is Amanda Burden, who was Babe Paley’s daughter, Ted Kennedy’s longtime mistress and the ex-girlfriend of Charlie Rose.

I hope that sociopathic SOB has to pay for his own cosmetic surgery now...

nothing makes a man look older than his mid-life crisis 20-year old side piece

oh mary! his reputation will not be irretrievably damaged personally and profesionally, bet me. There'll alwsys be a willing woman or two, and if he's as brilliant as she says he will just adjust.

We've heard none of his side of the story about living with an American princess.

Babe Paley had great style, but I've often thought her fabled beauty was overrated.

"Pinched" is the word that comes to mind.

12/27/2012 Florbelle was one of the Trustees for the $22,000,000 1020 Fifth Avenue apartment. That even made jaded old me clutch my pearls.

In Amanda Burden (and Belle's) defense, Babe was reputedly a terrible mother: inattentive, narcissistic, and cold.

Babe was one of the Cushing sisters, who knew about marrying to advantage.

He's terrible, but she's needy and her picker is broken.

She wants to know why.

Ok. Rough. But she did lose 20 pounds.

I wish I had lost 20 lbs in Covid, instead I gained 50. Keep humble bragging, phony rich bitch!

I would rather read the Daily Mail (sorry) version about some bloke dumping his wife for a younger woman. And then the wife gets to tell her bitter tale to the Fail. Juicy, embarrassing details with huffy indignation.

The poor little heiress airing her sorrow with an elegiac passive aggression in the NYT is just too annoying.

I did read it though.

Yes, it's perfect clickbait for the NYT. And I clicked.

"I do laugh at posters who think that money and status are going to win a woman a man. "

Not strictly true, some extremely ambitious straight men will choose a wife for her money and status. That may well have been the case here, the guy was ambitious and hard-working, and if he married for money, status, and help in climbing the ladder he wouldn't be the only New York climber to do so. And BTW one of our threads about First Ladies made me realize that the many American presidents have done the same thing (going back to George Washington), married a woman whose money, connections, or brains could jump start their careers.

Emotion didn't enter into it, of course, it seems he left her without a second thought when he decided he didn't need her money and status any more, he had his own. Or when he found a better deal. And that's the drawback to marrying an extremely ambitious person, there's no room for sentiment in their decision-making process.

"What’s different about my story is that my marriage exploded at the dawn of a pandemic."

Many people broke up during the quarantine but some people reconciled.

The quarantine allowed you total quiet, it was not a peaceful time but there was time and space to think about what you want out of this life.

In this instance, the ex m-husband needed one week in quarantine before ending his marriage.

"Within weeks I had shed 20 pounds, the self I had come to know over two decades of pregnancies and family life. "

Just in time to renter the dating scene if she chooses.

[quote] The poor little heiress airing her sorrow with an elegiac passive aggression in the NYT is just too annoying.

You write like the type of editor The Times desperately needs! Or do you want to help burn down HuffPo and their version of this indulgence?

"When he walked into my office, shut the door and kissed me, I was done for. He was intent on marrying me within weeks of that kiss, pledging to take care of me, to step into my dead father’s role as my protector. And we did marry, within the year, both of us (I still believe) very much in love. "

This is romantic, the stuff soap operas are made of.

But I am the type of person who assumes the worst from people and I see less romance in the gesture and more self-calculation on his part.

She is a catch, an heiress with a pedigree. That gesture was intended to lock her down while he was still in her sightline and while she was of child bearing age.

Her daughters are 18 and 15 and have their own lives.

They are teenagers, R65. They take this stuff hard, even if they try not to show it.

R66 is correct, and if their father really doesn't want to see them, then they're taking it hard. At that age, they'll blame themselves and possibly their mother for driving him away, they'll assume it's their fault and not his own.

Kids typically feel that way, because they're too young to understand how much of life is totally out of their control (the self-blame is a way to feel in control of the situation), and how hard it really is to know a grownup. They thought they knew their own father, and if the author of the article is correct, not even the kids knew what was really going on inside him.

[quote]They are teenagers, [R65]. They take this stuff hard, even if they try not to show it.

I know 30somethings that have been devastated by their parents' divorce.

They sound like White Lotus guests.

I certainly was.

They believed whisky killed the virus? No babe, you're alcoholics.

And now she can join the ranks of his "crazy ex's who stalked him". Not so fun is it bitch?

Belle darling,

Would you mind if I option your story for my new sit-com?

It'll be a wonderful comeback vehicle for me, and of course, I'll sing the theme song myself...

"There's a new girl in town and she's looking good;"

"There's a fresh freckled face in the neighborhoood."

Who said anything about the daughters not being effected by their parents divorce.

I said they have their own lives and whether they are effected or not, their parents are no longer married.

[quote]I said they have their own lives and whether they are effected or not...

Really.

Put me on ignore. That works.

The kids can't be a consideration for whether a marriage ends or not. This is literally grown people's business.

New money trash.

R30 he was a senior associate not a partner.

R79

He's to hot. Was not hot. Just bland. She's not pretty either.

typo. HE IS NOT HOT

R36? Lesbians like you are why I've never had (and probably never will have) a lesbian friend. And why I've been happily and deliberately single since 2008.

Just sayin'.

I’m with you, r83. Why do people think that friends want to hear them drone on and on about the same shit for months? The over analyzing is the worst. I’m an empathetic person, but I can only take so much. People should sort things out themselves, or get a therapist.

Sorry but that sounds like an excruciating and shocking thing to go through, during an already destabilizing, scary time (start of a global pandemic lockdown) -- totally heartrending and mindblowing. And no amount of money could condole anyone going through such a betrayal. There is no amount of rugs, or gnocci, or square footage of real estate, that could compensate for the person you thought you were going to grow old with suddenly dumping you AND your shared children, after 21 years, and then treating you like you meant nothing - that you are a nothing-person to them. And the kids -- nothings. None of it meant a goddamn thing.

Jesus.

That is. Fucked. Up.

Really fucked up. Which is why I'm glad it's in the Times. You know he'll retaliate by posting some gross wedding or birth announcement with New Wife

[quote]This story is why you NEVER give up your own career (I hope the author didn't),

This idiot couldn't bother to read the article, but still had to run his mouth

He positioned himself as her protector because she's filthy rich. She "needed him" (as a protector) when it was really the other way around. He needed her status and wealth to elevate his position in society.

“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

He probably realized one or two of the kids are sociopaths like him so he's out of there.

There's two sixes to every story.

What was she bringing to the table?

Sides ffs.

A lot to accomplish in 7 days:

“He chopped three different kinds of wood and built gorgeous fires. He made me whiskey sours as the sun set (we believed reports that whiskey would kill the virus). Our older daughter learned to make gnocchi; our younger daughter learned to play Fortnite. We delighted in the off-season use of our house and seeing the island for the first time in late winter light.”

“Almost three years later, I still have no understanding of why my husband left.”

“Why do most people leave? Another man or woman. It’s why they begin looking that is the more important question.

R79 Muckety muck

Here they are in November 2019. He's got gayface.

He’s only like 53, right?

He looks like an old man already.

She looks better than he does.

Yesterday a woman I've worked with for several years told me she was going to her dance school's summer party. I thought to myself "How nice that she found a schmuck who goes to ballroom dancing lessons and to such parties with her."

Later in the conversation, it came out that her husband had recently (and abruptly) left their marriage of 20+ years and 2 kids for a younger woman.

Plus ça change, etc etc.

Babe Paley looks like Nancy Reagan in r50. Awful hair and garish jewellery. Though the top of her dress fits impeccably.

“Totally heartrending and mindblowing”?

A woman’s cheating husband left his family, it happens every day on every street. He didn’t make her a Titanic submersible widow. Calm down, r85.

Admittedly, “we believed reports that whiskey would kill the virus” makes me despise them both.

So much of this article could have been written by Shannan Watts: a husband she saw as quiet, steady, committed was internally screaming to get out of a life he had come to hate.

The quiet, uncommunicative, unemotional traits are often the sign that someone is keeping their true self tightly under wraps, and usually there is a very good reason why they feel the need to keep themselves hidden.

This lady was married to a man she didn’t know and should feel relieved that her husband found a non-violent way out. Chris Watts took a more direct route to rid himself of his family in a similar situation.

Oh why yes of course, she should feel relieved that she's now totally alone and the father of her kids wants nothing to do with them. She ought to be grateful.

I mean, he didn't ruthlessly murder her and the kids. So you know, count your blessings and be quiet damnit.

[quote] Oh why yes of course, she should feel relieved that she's now totally alone and the father of her kids wants nothing to do with them. She ought to be grateful. I mean, he didn't ruthlessly murder her and the kids. So you know, count your blessings and be quiet damnit.

Yes, Rose, she should be relieved. Not grateful, but relieved. She was married to a man she didn’t really know, who was unable or unwilling to be honest with her until pushed to do so when his affair became known, and who was obviously deeply unhappy with his life as a husband and father. This is a recipe for a much worse ending than a divorce, so, yes, I would feel relief that I was no longer sharing a home with him.

It sucks to discover one's own ignorance and naiveté. Still, she could easily find a new guy and when the kids are both in college, she is free as a bird to dates lots of men or marry another guy. She must have tons of "social" friends and she can go to events galore and house parties and she'll be fine.

The personal essay about this breakup is in DEPLORABLE taste, however, so some old fashioned "socail" friends will think twice about her.

Why do you think I chopped wood for a week?

Lol at comparing this dude to Chris Watts. Who is the bitter frau spamming this thread?

The teen daughters are going to slut it up big time now that their father has abandoned them.

that guy is not even cute

i'd spend the alimony on a man with a handsome face and a big dick

There was a great deal of misinformation in the early days of the pandemic. We weren't wearing masks because we were told mask wearing is ineffective.

Why is this generic tale of heterosexual woe being discussed on a gay message board? I mean really haven't we heard all this many times before? I could care less of the trials and tribulations of the 1%. Especially the heterosexual 1%. Sorry if this is callous. The only thing that would make this even more typical news as if one of the daughters decided she was trans.

Having personal wealth doesn't insulate you from life's hardships. But it gives people options. Including a feckless husband who is deluding himself into thinking younger women are chasing him for his personality, not his money. His wife basically said he has no personality.

Having options is nice.

R100 This situation doesn't relate to Chris Watts. This guy is effete and cruelly and publicly abandoned his daughters. Chris always put his kids first. He used to take them on surprise daddy-day trips and would take them to show them where he worked. No comparison.

It’s interesting she fell for the “grand proclamation”, grand gesture” treatment from a man who was otherwise (it seems) very uncommunicative.

That’s usually a big red flag and frankly creepy.

Where in this article does it say the exhusband was/is chasing younger women? He was sleeping with a married woman. That is the only detail provided.

The article does not need to state what we all know to be true.

His hair is quite unfortunate.

Is it a wig?

It looks like a wig.

[quote]Here they are in November 2019. He's got gayface.

And big Dumbo ears

I guess some take comfort in believing he's chasing younger tail than believe he's fleeing his nutty wife.

Certainly it's DL material. This is Babe Paley's granddaughter and many of us who know our New York Society history thus have followed Amanda Burden's career for decades. How the fuck she stayed married to creepy Charlie Rose is a mystery.

His behavior is outrageous...

even if she had a stank pussy

Maybe if she lost the twenty pounds earlier she might still be married.

Don’t confuse people with the facts, r113

Based on her narrative, R119, for which it is easy enough to poke holes given her vague prose. My guess is she thought their society would shun him and the opposite has occurred. Now, she's doubling down. She's Tinsley'ing herself.

And on that note, These women all had bad test in husbands. Amanda not only married Rose, but also Carter, who was another gay Vanderbilt.

bad TASTE in husbands

So r122, it couldn’t possibly be that this woman is right, and her ex- is shitty and wrong? 🤔

It’s interesting how these society types marry each other and seem so unhappy.

The town where I grew up is a middle class version of this. It’s very beautiful, everyone knows each other, and the lifestyle is very comfortable. There are horses and beach houses, but it’s not expensive to live there so we aren’t talking billionaires.

Most of the people I went to high school with are married to each other and still live there. I can’t imagine anything more stifling though it would be a very easy life.

My point is: people from these somewhat closed societies almost never venture out into the world when choosing a spouse. And maybe they should.

Had Mr. Big Ears not swooped in, maybe Belle could have ended up with a Ron LaFlame. (Davis Polk has a Menlo Park office.)

[quote]How the fuck she stayed married to creepy Charlie Rose is a mystery.

Not married. Amanda Burden was partnered with Charlie Rose from 1993 to 2006 (longer than both of her legal marriages) but they never wed. Given that he turned out to be a sexual abuser and harasser (accused by 35 different women, ending his TV career), that turns out to be a good thing.

There is something in the DNA of these 3 generations of women: marrying/partnering with successful, socially prominent men who cheat like dogs. Babe's husband William Paley was a notorious womanizer, and Babe was further humiliated when Truman Capote wrote about it in a scandalous short story.

Amanda and Charlie, back in 2017.

Not at all, R125. That the husband works and has excelled at Gray is a clear indicator of his lack of empathy, among other things. But this babe in the woods act the eife is putting on laughable.

So much of what she writes is easily arguable. That she does not provide solid facts is a red flag. "Brushes with the law" could equal minor weed possession. Difficulties in school could mean anything, but probably nothing considering he got into Yale law.

Notice she really doesn't quantify the relationship with the kids? Dollars to donuts the relationships are fine. His divorse attorney probably rightfully counseled his client not to fight his wife re custody given the advance ages of the daughters anf their close proximity to his residence. They are able, and probably do, pop over to his place whenever it suits.

He is probably a Grade A asshole, but she is a spoiled former deb who's ego is bruised from being left. It's been three years, she needs to move on.

Most successful, prominent men cheat.

Because they can.

You can go looking for a more laid back, “nicer” guy, but they come with their own basket of problems. Specifically, they usually want someone to take care of them both financially and as a “Mommy.”

In conclusion, human beings are almost all fucked up. If you can find “rich, successful fucked up,” that’s better than “poor, shiftless fucked up.”

Thank you for the correction about Charlie Rose.

You get over it when you are ready to get over it, not before.

You are not permitted to tell someone to move on and get over it.

You are permitted to tell someone that you don't want to hear it anymore because that is the truth.

Telling someone to get over it is a dishonest way of saying, " I don't want to hear it".

Your husband of a two decades leaves without explanation? Why would you not be bruised ?

I am different. There is no explanation my husband of two decades just leaving can offer that will satisfy the "why"?

R130 are they all fucked up? I can concede that people are difficult to live with but I don't behave the way this woman's ex did nor am I looking for a Mommy. Also don't know any women who have behaved this way.

Perhaps just your social circle is emotionally damaged or immature.

R130 is correct. I will add that the more successful a person is, the more likely they are to be fucked up. It takes a certain type of person to make it to the top. You have to be willing to put your career ahead of everything else.

I don’t think there is much Vanderbilt money left.

They were swimming in many pools of family fortunes, not just the Vanderbilt heritage.

She should have killed him and accused him of abuse!

I would not be committing social suicide by publicly airing my dirty laundry, R133. This woman either has no friends or doesn't listen to them.

Re "answers", there's only ever one: he doesn't love you.

[quote]Perhaps just your social circle is emotionally damaged or immature.

Says the frau arguing with strangers about their opinions.

No, that is not the answer. Many people stay in loveless marriages literally until death do us part.

Yes because using an internet forum is the same as leaving a spouse of 20 years with no explanation R141. You're a sharp one, you are.

Based on her personal and familial worth, she doesn't have to work. But she did work prior to marriage perhaps as a means to meet single young men.

I am reading between the lines but concluding he targeted her as a game hunter bags a trophy. He needed a big dramatic moment (kissing her in her closed office and promising to protect her) along with a quick engagement to seal the deal before she got bored with the office job or met another man.

He married for money and no longer needs her money so he is done.

R122 she’s also related ( by marriage) to Tinsley Mortimer, so that’s perfect!

R137 R138 Belle is the granddaughter of Standard Oil’s Stanley Mortimer (not Wm S Paley—his marriage to Babe came next). That’s where the bulk of the fortune comes from.

Her father Carter Burden was a Commodore Vanderbilt descendent but there are so many branches of that family so who knows.

Carter had a few family fortunes behind him. He wasn't a broke Vanderbilt. He had a lot of properties, money socked in a foundation, cavernous NY apartments decorated by the best, filled with treasures, and donated generously to big ticket NY institutions.

We are overlooking an important part of the timeline:

March 21: Belle gets voicemail alerting her to affair. According to her, husband says it means nothing.

March 22: He announces he’s leaving.

SHE YADDA YADDA’D THE BEST PART!

The dramatic confrontation!

Something went down and he decided he was entitled to cut her out of his life immediately and completely.

I wonder if he ever would have left if not for this confrontation. Probably not.

Would she have preferred that? Who knows.

I don’t understand why she wouldn’t call the husband of the woman her husband was screwing, if she wanted answers. He probably knew more details.

Carter and Amanda thought they were riche bobos and lived in an enormous apt in the Dakota. For his second marriage he bought on in 1020 Fifth Avenue.

she's had 3 kids. Her vag is the size of grand canyon.

Hotdog down a hallway.

[quote][italic]I have no secret to share about how to move on without answers. [/italic]

So what is this writing piece, exactly. When someone tells a story, there’s usually a point. This drivel has no conclusion.

I’d understand someone being pointlessly lost in life - it’s sad. But if you’re going to the trouble of rolling up your (Hermes) sleeves, writing, editing, and publishing about it… can you throw in some insight at the end? The New York Times isn’t free. What are we paying you for??

[quote]Why is this generic tale of heterosexual woe being discussed on a gay message board?

Because she spilled her guts in the Times?

[quote]I could care less of the trials and tribulations of the 1%.

That's nice dear, but most of us don't agree with you.

[quote]His hair is quite unfortunate. Is it a wig? It looks like a wig.

I was sure it WAS a wig when I first saw it, but now I'm not. Can someone in Manhattan please try to snatch it and report back?

Are we sure these stories ever actually happened, I mean, actually to these people? Do they exist? What must be wrong with you to write to the NY Times and say "My husband left me, let's make a story!" and they say "Oh yes!" I mean, how does that work?

[quote]I was sure it WAS a wig when I first saw it, but now I'm not. Can someone in Manhattan please try to snatch it and report back?

If a bitch ever deserved to have her wig snatched off in public, this Henry Davis cunt deserves it...

R132, I had a bad break up and constantly yammered to my friends about it until one of them said to me, "you're gonna have to get over it."

It was the kick in the head I needed. I got over it.

How long were with the person before you broke up? Yammering for years about a year long fling is not the same as yammering for years about a twenty year marriage with kids

',Get over it' is excellent advice, but some fraus never do. As noted, it's been more than three years and Lovey is still a basketcase.

Get over it= I don't wanna hear about it,let's talk about me

It's now the headline on the Daily Fail!

Lots of lip smacking and chewing over the details. The daily smells should not be able to source from the " woke" NYT.

bland and ugly. both of them. punch and delete.

[quote]Hot Husband Leaves | Rich Frau Ex Publicly Ponders "Why?!"

Old Narcisstic Meh-Looking Husband Leaves | Rich Frau Needs Time to Realize How Lucky She Is

By her own telling, he was compulsive about being in bed by 9 pm and he used an app to track his sleep...

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I hope there is more to this. I want this to be the new Bad Art Friend but the story is flimsy so far.

Flobelle's biggest problem is deciding which hot young men she'll allow to rub her bunions...

while she laughs at the vapid young bimbo who gets saddled with caring for this malignant narcissist as he moves into his dementia and diaper phase

Anyone who feels the need to publish this in the New York Times has got serious issues. He had his reasons for leaving and, at the top of the list, she was clearly a lot of work. Unintentionally, she showed us exactly why he left.

He made a selfish decision 3 years ago. And now he's being dragged for filth by the news he hates the most (DailyMail) and the news he loves the most (the Times).

Bitch played the long game, and she won.

Oh, honey…he married you for your social connections and money. He was probably fond of you, and maybe convinced himself he was in love with you. These kind of transactional relationships don’t last beyond a decade or two.

A word of advice, Flobelle...

Don't make friend with a group of charming gays when you vacation at the White Lotus Hotel in Sicily

Flobelle sounds like a prescription medication for female trouble.

[quote]Flobelle sounds like a prescription medication for female trouble.

Do you struggle to control your menstruation on heavy-flow days?

Ask your doctor about "Flobelle" *...

"I hope there is more to this. I want this to be the new Bad Art Friend but the story is flimsy so far."

Don't worry. It's already a screaming headline in the Daily Mail, so it will be. I'm sure "chums" on both sides are dialing up Page Six as we speak.

She should have said that's fine, honey. Take all the time you need to go through what you're going through. Go sleep with whoever you need, go find yourself, go take a vacation with women who make you feel young again.

We'll be here for you when you get back.

^ Thanks for your two cents, Michelle Duggar...

but not every woman wants to be a doormat for a man

[quote]Do you struggle to control your menstruation on heavy-flow days? Ask your doctor about "Flobelle" *—* May Cause Serious Side Effects

I tried that drug...

it made my pussy stink!

Does she decorate as flamboyantly as her father did? If so, she killed his boner years ago.

20 years of relative happiness is more than most people get, and she started with more than most to begin with. She was played, but look what she’s left with: still more than most people will ever have. Move on.

Her problem was that she married a sociopath. He was able to keep his sociopathic tendencies hidden for years, but something finally snapped. He will die alone and miserable one day.

President of Arden Assets. Brief clip at about 2:00 mins.

I'm sure being wealthy has helped her pain...I read elsewhere that this pandemic 2nd home was 4.7 million

Yup. In quarantine I was in a little walk-up apartment arguing with my family on the phone who used the quarantine as an excuse to get high and stay high.

A summer home in Martha's Vineyard or even a condo on a beachfront would have been nice to retire to.

REJECT!

This Arden Assets business seems shady.

[quote]Hot Husband Leaves | Rich Frau

He's ugly. You have very bad taste. This is the kind of ugly guy you fantasize about?

R184 what was your family high on?

The ex-husband is moderately attractive, by the standards of fiftyish white men, trim and with plenty of hair, which puts him in about the 90th percentile of fiftyish American men.

Gayface sighting confirmed, though.

It’s easy to diminish the great wealth that she came from. But she graduated cum laude from Harvard Law and passed the NY State Bar, which is no small thing.

I’m sure the daughters noticed 3 years ago that dad never wanted to see them. I’m hopeful they’ve had some counseling and they support their mom calling out their emotionally dead father via the NYT.

It's not that easy to reduce a healthy and huge trust fund that was in tact in the 1980s, considering the market returns since that date.

Theyre drunks, aggressive drunks and potheads. I am the only sober one. r188

Her parents divorced when she was three and her father died when she was mid-20s so that whirlwind “I’ll protect you” romance probably happened right about then.

She was ripe for the picking. America is nothing but grift and grifters now. SHE was the long con for the ex.

Where does it say he doesn't see the kids? She's being cagey with her language. He didn't petition for full or split custody because this crazy bitch would have drug the divorce out for years.

Maybe amongst her social set, there were some untruths being spread about their divorce story and she wanted to set the record straight. And, so she did.

Now, Davis can come back with his side of it. We're all ears, Henry!

More Babe Paley style, if only as a palette cleanser.

Palate

Or were you going for a double entendre?

If so, bravo!

Babe was always in need of a palate cleanser - she had a full set of dentures after losing all her own teeth in a car accident in her twenties.

I guess we now understand her appeal

She’s the sociopath for writing and publishing this shit in the NYTimes. A Harvard educated lawyer and she thinks it’s smart to tell everyone about her divorce like some basic attention seeking hysteric? This is just like the fraus who write lengthy oversharing Facebook posts about their personal business. The forum is the only difference.

And I’m sure her children love their family drama in a national newspaper.

We don’t know what went on in their marriage. This is some nonsense written by the angry wife. Why is everyone assuming she’s a reliable source? For all we know, they were fighting constantly and she’s also a piece of shit. Of course she’s now saying there were no signs of trouble and everything was perfect.

And of all the things to give a shit about - some rich NY lawyers getting a divorce? Join the club. Don’t 90% of these types split up or have affairs?

Bravo NYTimes.

^ Please welcome Henry Davis to the thread!

Gurl, we knew you were a "cookie sniffer" just from you pix

I want to know about the divorce, did she get the home in Martha's Vineyard, and the home in NYC. How much child support per child did she get? Alimony, huge divorce settlement?

Henry has crazy eyes and Babe Paley looks like an underweight horse.

Also, Team Rich Woman. Screw her sociopath ex.

Wait a minute....She's a Mortimer!! Her family is beyond wealthy!! That family is "trust-funded up the ass"

He married her for social connection, is this woman related to Kathleen Mortimer (Ambassador Harriman(Court of St.James-England during WW2 daughter-Harriman fortune)

OP, you know who Pamela Harriman was? The "Gold-digging slut" who convinced her 3rd husband to leave the "over 100 million fortune" to her.

The husband is the type to have a partner always. These guys have backups all over town and I bet he has another kid in 1.5 years. Probably sex select for a boy. Because "bitches be crazy".

This sort of confessional writing is the gray laminate wood flooring of literature today.

R209 And your post is the gold coin shower of post writing. Marvelous.

The genre is "Get a Blog!"

R184 R192

telling tales out of school now are we

{must be tough, irl, sorry]

r212.

I don't understand. Are you trying to be funny? You think that you are being cute?

You are wrong. Again.

Just because someone demands an explanation doesn’t mean they’re entitled to one.

Her spouse has essentially ghosted her. It’s best for her to simply move on with any dignity she can retain. Does she really want to hear, “You’ve become boring”? Or, “Truthfully, I never loved you all that much, anyway”?

“You had a hot ass but we couldn’t stay wed forever.”

Sounds like he did marry her for her pedigree and money. Throughout the essay, she never once complained about money.

My guess at her personality: Pollyanna. I don't think the start of that relationship was full of red flags, but I think there must've been red flags in the past 20 years.

When the husband of the Other Woman called, I sure as hell would have called back! Yet, this dimwit sits and ponders: why??? I would have pumped that guy for information. He obviously wanted to talk, as well.

The story is missing a middle and an ending. "I'm still in the dark about all of this; he won't tell me why he left."

But the point of the story was revenge, to air out this guy's dirty laundry. Hence, the story didn't need a middle and an ending.

Nine times out of ten, the answer would be “I’m not in love with you any more and I no longer want to fuck you”, often followed a couple of weeks later with “There’s something that I need to tell you - I’ve fallen in love with someone else and we’re fucking all the time”.

The End

“ Just because someone demands an explanation doesn’t mean they’re entitled to one.”

If she’s not entitled to an explanation when he does his own thing, then he’s not entitled to bitch when she does hers.

And her thing is bigger - much BIGGER - than his thing was.

You're married to someone for twenty years and they just up and leave? With no explanation and won't take your calls? You are entitled to an explanation.

But nothing you will hear from the feckless fuck will make you feel better or even understand it.

Do you really need to hear: " I married you for your money and now that I don't need your money anymore, ✌ " to feel closure?

She presents the split as a cruel, brutal surgical strike. That's not the greatest option. But I think something quite short is the best way to divorce. Not hostile short, but just it's over, REALLY OVER, I'm moving on and radically and rapidly so.

I have seen messy splits and they are far more hideous than what this very rich woman, relatively young, has endured.

and good for her, r221, right? she burned some rich asshole in the bible he reads every day. in front of everyone.

such a DL thing to do.

You think she burned him with this drivel? I don't.

Eh. Some sociopaths don't mind negative attention, but most can't stand it. She put his ass on blast. Including his high school troubles. Lots of people will speculate and gossip and I doubt the Paul Bunion husband wants that kind of heat in his carefully modulated life.

“ You think she burned him with this drivel?”

“Think”? No.

I know she did. And I’ll glad for it. I’m glad that when he walks in the office, people will think “you shit”.

And when some woman googles his name when they meet at a bar, she’ll think “you shit”.

When he’s at some charity function, they’ll think “you shit”.

For the rest of his life, the internet will remind him “you shit”.

When I, scholarship boy, dumped my beautiful blonde trust fund girlfriend at Cornell to become a fag, she got a new more handsome filthy rich blueblood guy within a week, and told me how great his huge dick felt in her vag. I laughed and took my lashing and we stayed friends. I really don't see why this woman couldn't show some class and spine and live well as the best revenge.

R225 people are not as stupid and simple and naive as you. Everyone knows there are two sides to a split, and both parties probably fucked it up.

R166, That's him with his sister.

I don’t know that this husband’s all bad. He left without a fuss after 20 years of marriage - didn’t give her one cause to complain the whole time. Gave her full custody of the kids without a fight. He’s not exactly Dan Broderick.

Perhaps she’d like a more dramatic divorce to wail about, but he just turned in his key and checked out.

Byyyyye!

Bye Flobella!

[quote]r85 There is no amount of rugs, or gnocci, or square footage of real estate, that could compensate for the person you thought you were going to grow old with suddenly dumping you AND your shared children after 21 years

But so much easier for this Park Avenue dame than for some washerwoman with 6 kids hanging off her.

I mean, please. Only her pride has imploded; her existence and income aren’t threatened. Aren’t we pretty sure that losing her fortune and many properties would alarm her more than losing this spouse?

Didn't I sell the Flobelle back in the Eighties at the low, low price of 19.99?

There are only two people who know what happens in a marriage - the two that are married to each other. And, the kicker is, sometimes even those two don't know what happens in their marriage.

My Aunt told me that the French have an expression - "We marry strangers".

Heterosexual men tell their girlfriends and spouses what they're thinking and feeling through their actions, or, inactions, not their words. They can lie with their words, but they can't lie about what they actually do or don't do.

As stated earlier, I don't know what his side of the story is. I'd like to read that in the NY Times, too.

But, if she's the kind who would act in to publish for Satan, God and everybody else in the world what she discloses here, she's nailed her own red flag to the mast, too.

[quote]r233 But, if she's the kind who would act in [pique] to publish for Satan, God and everybody else in the world what she discloses here, she's nailed her own red flag to the mast, too.

True. Too true.

No, r232. Flobelle was in the OG Supremes!

Maybe he left Belle because he learned her full name.

[quote]But a rebellious past lurked behind my husband’s calm exterior: teenage brushes with the law, trouble in school. There were many women in his wake and stories of some of them stalking him, unable to accept his rejection.

I assume he told her this stuff, so take it with a grain of salt.

I’m friends with a really wealthy family. Actually the family isn’t wealthy, the grandparents were wealthy and sent them to private boarding school and then they went off to college and became wealthy.

2 of them are living in London right now.

Going into their circle, there’s definitely pressure to get married and be perfect. The guy (brother) is a few years younger than me, worked in the banking world and meeting snd hanging out with all his friends - I was expecting really crazy bachelors. Guys who had huge jobs that was going to generate big money and they were all engaged!

I think there’s pressure in the “men’s club” to get married and have a Stepford wife and children. I think it’s frowned upon to be working for yourself in big business and not working to provide.

It’s like being a rock star bachelor with money and whores is frowned upon. You can’t be a single man at the golf club! Mary!

It’s never been talked about but that’s the vibe I got. Cause I have other male friends their age who were in their late 20’s and they had no interest in getting married or having kids. But they weren’t also on their way to be wealthy.

This article reminded me of that.

These guys feel pressure to marry to get ahead in the business / wealthy world.

What she does is write an article about how she’s over him but that’s paradoxical- why write the article if you aren’t still hurt and want to inflict damage?

I had a guy break up with me out of nowhere, and yes, it sent me into a tailspin. But also it was the BEST thing to happen to me because I realized I had been modeling my relationship after my parents, was being extremely codependent, and yes, maybe a little bored as well. I also ignored all the red flags along the way. After picking up the pieces, I rearranged my expectations, priorities, and expectations and also got sober, best thing to ever happen to me.

My husband is my very best friend and we’ve been happily married eight years now.

-You need to be happy and love yourself FIRST, or you will attract the wrong people and allow them to take advantage -You have to kiss a few toads before you find your prince, so be choosy. -There is no prince! There s only a couple that genuinely want it to work and are willing to compromise.

🎶 And Flo, she don’t know. ‘Cause the boy she loves is a Romeo.

R239 You are a sage indeed (sincerely).

My thoughts, that no one asked for, is that the husband married her for love but gradually fell out of love with her as their day-to-day life fell out of sync. He would have been working crazy hours at his firm. It is not quite clear how she spent her time other than being a mother. At some point she served as general counsel for her brother's now-defunct company (see below, he recently made the news for being involved with some shady deal with Russians) and at one time as a trustee for Pierpont Library. Plus, she and Henry had their own foundation but I cannot find much on what it achieved. She weirdly doesn't have much of a footprint for someone of her pedigree. Those types are usually active with several different philanthropic and cultural organizations. Her choice, or has she lost favor within society circles?

It was easy enough to stay in the marriage for whatever reasons (kids, reputation, costs, etc.) before the pandemic as they probably did not see much of each other. When he got caught having an affair, he may have made an honest assessment of his feelings and decided there was nothing of marriage left to salvage. All other decisions made thereafter were probably based on consultation with his divorce counsel. If he cut off her calls I would bet she was calling him at all hours. Custody? By her own description he lives in the same neighborhood. They most likely had a prenup so the only bone of contention in the divorce would be the kids. For a quick resolution, his attorney advised him to accept to her initial custody plan (unless it was draconian). The kids would have been 16 and 13 when the divorce was finalized, making custody a moot point since the kids could pop over to see him at their leisure or reach him via cell. Her contention she was raising the kids on her own during the pandemic? These kids were not toddlers. Prior to distancing restrictions, she probably had a full contingent of staff raising these two. Was she mad that she had to contact Postmates herself instead of leaving it to Conchita or one of the nannies? I don't buy that he isn't involved with his kids - she's just trying to look like a martyr.

Now the kids have largely flown the coop and she has nothing to fill her time. He's gone. She has no job nor is active in society. She just cannot accept that everyone has moved on so has a public temper tantrum. I don't feel bad for the husband - marry in haste, repent in leisure. Those poor kids, though.

R242 "The kids would have been 16 and 13 when the divorce was finalized, making custody a moot point since the kids could pop over to see him at their leisure or reach him via cell."

Custody is never a moot point. A 13 year-old is not in charge of her life. Nor is a 16 year-old. All their friends' dads got partial custody when they got divorced. This is the emotional equivalent of abandonment to the teenagers. Sounds like he was an absentee father anyway if he's ditching them. They won't see each other, the girls will have problems and they will hate him.

^ Mr. Davis' PR team is in damage-control mode.

He was a corporate attorney who seems to have left that to create his own investment company. It must have been a LOT of work.

R244 meant for R242

Oh please nobody in that world is reading DL.

R245

R248 😱🤡💩🤮👺👾😱🤡💩🤮👺👾😱🤡💩🤮👺👾 😱🤡💩🤮👺👾

To R249...Good morning on this July 3rd, what are you really trying to say in that post.

Very colorful Emoji's!!

Eh. I saw a "Law & Order" episode wherein a marriage of rich kids was termed a "merger."

Husband quit the family business here. I think earlier posters got it right: Flobelle and then children were simply part of his strategy. She should stop now, never pen another word about him, and live well.

R250, r249 is saying that his immediate predecessor with his retarded posts is a clown, a POS, etc.

Yes a delicate violet who blocks people THEN posts numbers so he can read the scandalous, nerve shattering and abusive posts of the mean bullies he has blocked. I have a picture of R248

He's probably a narcissistic dbag who didn't like getting found out. He probably would've stayed if his dumb wife was still starry eyed

R242 here again. I stated that Bell did not have much of a societal footprint. I went back and searched by here married name, "Belle Burden Davis", and found a ton of the usual societal stuff for her station. So, I was incorrect, she actually was very active in society while married. Her activities seem to have dropped off a cliff after divorcing.

She still sounded starry-eyed and clueless by the time he absconded.

The pandemic was probably the final straw, for him. He was probably a workaholic and he wasn't able to work and escape and see his mistress. He was in the country 24/7 with wife and kids instead of in the city, interacting with his mistress and others.

Child custody affects child support. If mom has full physical custody, then she will probably get child support.

I volunteer to be her live-in life coach this summer at her Martha's Vineyard "bolthole". I have lots of old fun black friends in Oak Bluffs, from my Ivy League days. Belle needs new horizons, so why not big black zaddy dick?

A summer of black aristocracy daddies laying pipe will set Belle right again.

R254, a narcissist would have fought for sole custody just for the sake of it even if he didn't want them. She probably did petition for sole custody and he readily agreed as he would still get every other weekend and half the holidays. That would have worked well with his schedule and meant he wouldn't have to haggle in court.

R238, "From the Terrace" is all about that milieu and marriage.

And Paul Neuman is "sooooo Fuckable" in that movie.

Dinner and a movie.

[quote]r242 It is not quite clear how she spent her time other than being a mother.

Cellos don’t drive themselves to recitals on their own!

Gnocchi ingredients don’t just appear out of thin air!

R259, I know a lot of narcissistic dads who dipped out the second they got the chance. Horrible in every way

Something about the "cello" ... that was such a good detail about her life.

[quote]r264 Something about the "cello" ... that was such a good detail about her life.

Excuse me, but it was “cellos,” plural. This was a first class establishment!

[italic]”My husband and I decided to quarantine with our two youngest children at our house on Martha’s Vineyard. We arrived on March 15 and settled in for a long stay, unpacking sweaters and boots, textbooks [bold]and cellos[/bold].”[/italic]

Either the girls both play cellos (which would be somewhat odd) or only one girl does, and they’re so rich she travels everywhere with a backup.

Although he was upper class himself, she gave him entry into the old money world of New York City. Now that he's moved on, and so has she with this piece, she's taken that calling card back. He can now move forward, but without her help. She was helping him keep that calling card by staying quiet, like a good little WASP society lady. Now it's truly over.

In Mountebank we say "celli."

I like how she slams her ex inlaws and his exes too

[QUOTE]They most likely had a prenup so the only bone of contention in the divorce would be the kids.

I was bit puzzled trying to figure out what they were fighting over in the divorce. He didn't want custody and she said he was kind to girls so I don't think he'd be chintzy with child support. As far as spousal support, she clearly doesn't need it. My conclusion is that she wants a stake in his company and has more awareness than we give her credit for.

Would he have made a go trying to establish his own investment firm without her connections and contacts to fabulously wealthy people? Were his clients and connections from his law firm enough to start out on his own? On top of the usual wifely social duties like hosting and attending parties and whatever Wall Street wives do, she brought so much cachet to the marriage. She's been wracking her brains and maybe slowly realized the marriage was a transaction that heavily favored and benefited him and wants a percentage of the business.

It's much psychologically easier to say and feel you were ghosted rather than used and discarded once your usefulness has evaporated. But in her heart of hearts, she knows. Her task now should be to deal with her unexpressed anger. Her father/childhood home could be volatile, something she said drew her to his seemingly placid personality. I hope she has a good therapist.

the source of contention is left his marriage of two decades without explanation and stopped taking his ex-wife's phone calls.

Her former in-laws have also stopped taking her calls.

the source of contention is HE left his marriage of two decades without explanation

Good for you! I am glad you got rid of his ass.

Actually, the lack of support from her ex-husband's family lends credence to my explanation at r269. WASPS like money, but not a semblance of greed and potential criminality .

Maybe he withheld his explanation to be kind, R271? Belle is a fivehead with a weak chin, a beaky nose and weak ankles. Her bone structure is not conducive to aging. Really, go look at her pics. It's not her fault, but no amount of plastic surgery will fix her issues. I don't know if I would want to wake up to that everyday.

Weak ankles? Weak ankles!

- Rough crowd.

If that article was any indication of how it was to deal with her every day for 20 years, I'm suprised he didn't leave sooner.

R259 "She probably did petition for sole custody and he readily agreed as he would still get every other weekend and half the holidays."

If he has no custody agreement he does not have "every other weekend and half the holidays". He has absolutely nothing. Where would you get this idea?

He'd never go without some type of custody agreement if he had sons instead of daughters. He'd take his laxbros on vacation with him, but whiny girls stay home.

R277, she's playing with words by saying "share custody". It means he didn't ask for sole custody or a 50/50 split, just visitation rights. But you know better, you're just being obstinate.

It's a free country. Men don't have waste away their lives by staying with their bitter, fat frau wives. Given some of the comments, there are fraus on this site who think men should be publicly shamed for not staying with them. How utterly pathetic are some women that they'd rather cohabitate with someone who depises them than move on?

Effing weirdos

R279, No.

1. He has zero relationship with the children.

2. She is decidedly not fat.

R281, continued:

3. She had no idea before he suddenly upped and left that he wanted to do so.

4. He might not "despise" her at all, for that supposes an emotion. Utter indifference is what he has exhibited.

It's not clear from her account of this event if her ex husband doesn't have a relationship with their children.

R279 "It means he didn't ask for sole custody or a 50/50 split, just visitation rights"

We have no idea what he asked for.

There is a world of difference between custody and visitation rights. They are in fact two separate issues, and parents with joint custody still legally set down agreements about visitation rights.

It’s maddening that she chose to not let readers comment.

Also, perhaps, revealing.

I don’t think that this is a negotiating ploy, and it certainly wasn’t done on impulse. Her lawyers, her daughters, and everyone else who matters have all carefully gone over this and helped her fine-tune it. She actually doesn’t care about “why.” However, as she admits, it annoys her to see him in her neighborhood. She’d be happier if he left town in disgrace, and she’s taken a step towards making that happen.

I think that he quickly deleted his LinkedIn page and had other information about himself scrubbed the day this came out.

R281, oh, it's not Belle that I believe is fat.

A sad thing is you KNOW she’d take him back if he now looked twice at her.

Strip this story. of money and high-society and I still think it's very sad. He's a shit. His family is cruel, and a clue to his personality.

She should have used a pseudonym; the people that count would have known the characters and the story.

This scenario is common, but most woman don't have the cushion she has to fall back on; they have to struggle financially and emotionally, often without help.

Overall I'm not very naive but I thought it was painful to read.

You’d think it wouldn’t have been SO hard for him to wait a few more years to flee the nest, when the kids were off in college - - but maybe being cooped up as a family during the pandemic made the rest of his life flash before his eyes, as it were.

He panicked, like someone held underwater.

Maybe he paid himself a gigantic bonus from his firm and didn't need to stick around another second.

[quote] You’d think it wouldn’t have been SO hard for him to wait a few more years to flee the nest, when the kids were off in college

"a few more years" is a long time, especially if you were miserable, starting from a few years ago.

Unless kids are thrown into poverty b/c parents divorce, I think they're better off if the parents do divorce. Kids aren't clueless about how their parents' relationship.

It’s hard to meet up with your side piece on the regular if you’re working from home at your remote vacation house and your wife and children are rightthere 24/7.

He was asleep by 9pm every night. How much misery could he have? They barely saw one another

R242 Who goes into business with not one but FOUR Russian oligarchs and expects all to end well? Burden III sounds like a chump.

Plus, why couldn’t he find other, legitimate investors? (I’ll take this question.) Because he’s lazy. Someone in his circle mentioned someone who knew someone and Boom! Russian investors. No boring PowerPoint presentations to potential venture capital investors for him.

"...kind with our children and occasionally in touch with me by text...."

This part makes no sense. HOW does he even communicate with the children in order to BE "kind"---when he only sporadically communicates with the custodial parent, presumably (to those who don't agree with me that he has cut ties with the kids, too) to arrange some sort of visitation?

That is to say, it is NOT a kindness to arrange to see his children "occasionally" instead of on a regular schedule. But a regular parenting schedule is part of what he is fleeing.

So I think the "kind to the children" bit IN THE MEDIA might really comprise the pretty lies she tells the children about their father. That he's looking for diamonds in deepest, darkest Africa. Or he's doing Top Secret work for the government. Or he's in a coma overseas. Whatever.

R226, she didn't miss you for a second. She was thinking

whelp this fizzle out.

I was hoping to hear from other family members

This was an utter embarrassment for all concerned, including the reading public.

"Small-town London. The best seats in the house at the Lyttlelton Theatre at the National are the 20 quid front row ones and I scored one dead center for today's matinee of Dear Octopus, which just might be my favorite production measured on lots of levels of all those I've seen lately. It was my second time to see it and it felt even deeper and more profound on a second viewing and to have witnessed it that close. I felt as if I were in the house with the family depicted in the 1938 play by Dodie Smith so beautifully directed by Emily Burns.

They are the best seats, that is, if you can handle the thinner dimensions and no arm rests. Indeed, the lady to my right, Pauline, in the last couple of photos, was the object of my apology when I felt her displeasure at my arm and shoulder touching hers a bit too much. "One did sense your assuming I was a wall upon which you could lean," she said. Hmmm, I thought, this is going to be a challenge to charm this one. But I am not one to back down from a challenge. By the end of the play, we were quite friendly. Mostly because she loved the production as much as I. But also because she was fascinated by my life lived as a cultural and spiritual pilgrim."

Sure, Wilma.

I have a cousin who is a partner at the law firm where the husband was an associate at the time of his marriage. I know why they broke up...

He was bored. Asset management, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions are asa a dull as the day is long. Those who rise to the top at these firms might have beautiful apartments, townhouses, and lofts in Manhattan and summer homes in the Hamptons, Martha's Vineyard, or Nantucket. They may spend Christmas skiing or in Palm Beach and a few weeks in Europe, Montana, or Wyoming. But their lives are as f@cking boring and routine as the dull work they do.

The dinner parties and events they attend bring them all together and their eyes start to wander. It's generational, too. Daddy was bored too, So was Mom.

Doesn't surprise at all this guy walked out on his wife.

Real bum, though, for turning his back on his daughters. Guess he won't be attending any events at Spence or Dalton.

r226, "beautiful blonde trust fund collegiate girl" vs "adequate blonde trust fund middle aged woman". Yeah that middle aged woman is sure going to get LOTS of dick.

I missed this the first time around. I am sure during normal times the husband's affair would have been swept under the rug but during the early days of Covid it presented him with the perfect opportunity to bail out. That one week on Martha's Vineyard was probably the most time they ever spent together as a family. I am sure the kids were at boarding school at their ages so not used to seeing their parents regularly. Dad's absence probably isn't an issue at all for them. Once the jig was up and the affair revealed, he realized he couldn't spend another minute with them.

I love that she did this, I wonder what the fallout was in their respective social circles?

I remember this. Dude did her dirty.

The article is her “I WILL DESTROY YOU” moment. Kudos.

This is a story written by a FRAU about what happened to a FRAU and written for FRAUS.

The ignore function works.

I wonder what they're up to now? I bet someone on reddit knows

Not quite r307. Fraus don’t really exist at this level of wealth.

I'm still confused. This piece of shit father didn't even want custody of his kids? I know daughters are a bore, but fuck, they are your kids. Even visitation should have placed the parents in contact of some sort. This is super weird and in a way I feel bad for this woman.

Finally, OP, you can't have a house on MV and a place in NYC and only be upper middle class. These folks are worth at least $2 million or more (likely a lot more) they are upper class.

[quote]Finally, OP, you can't have a house on MV and a place in NYC and only be upper middle class. These folks are worth at least $2 million or more (likely a lot more) they are upper class.

Not by NYC standards.

A junior or non-equity partner probably makes between $500K-750K. An senior equity partner likely makes between $3mm-5mm although upwards of $10mm wouldn't be unreasonable at one of the bigger white shoe firms.

I wonder whether she was still working or whether she stopped after having kids. She would have been a fool to quit working if she was capable of landing a job at the firm where they met.

r312 and none of the numbers you listed are upper middle class, that's solid upper class.

The upper class horror

...

I misread the author's version of events.

She was in quarantine with the family for a week when she received a phone call the other woman's husband.

The author confronted her husband.

Her husband told the author the affair meant nothing.

And the next morning he told her their marriage was finished.

No mystery here when you arrange the sequence of events in order.

Hubby wants to stick it in other women.

[quote] One's wealth, status and future prospects do not shield one from the pain of betrayal.

I've been rich, and I've been poor.

Rich is better.

OP = Here are some ideas for your next thread.....

fraus come in all social classes.

$2 million is not wealthy in that context.

That is not at all clear, R311, and I think the mom is playing with her words in the article. She said he didn't desire to share custody or daily parenting*. That probably means he did not pursue primary custody under the wise counsel of his attorneys lest she use the custody battle to drag things out. At the level these two are at, the financial aspects of the divorce would have already been reconciled via a pre-nup.

She mentions that she sees him from time-to-time. Which means he got a place fairly close to her. I am guessing he got weekends and purposefully moved close enough so the kids can pop over whenever they pleased.

*Which, really, how dramatic does she sound re 'daily parenting'? These two UES kids, who were probably 16 and 13 when the divorce proceedings took place, no doubt have their days filled with school and the myriad of college prep extra-curriculars per usual for kids of those circles along with wanting to spend their free time with their friend group. The mom acts like they're still in diapers.

He was a heel for sleeping around on her, but she is a psycho for publishing this in the NYT. She's a privileged bitch who can't believe a man of more humble beginnings had the temerity to leave her and she is going to make him pay. She doesn't even sound like she is mad that he cheated, but that he left. Her ego is wounded. I would have done just what the husband did, which was just communicate with her through my attorneys.

Where are you rubes getting that he is worth $2 million? That barely pays for a two bedroom condo. He runs a hedge fund with $10 billion under management. The wealth of these two people is incomprehensible to most regular folks.

Has Bell moved on yet?

“Belle” sounds like a wanna be professional writer testing out a story line. Whether or not it is true or based in truth is another matter.

Let’s remember the woman who killed her husband. Went on to write a children’s book about grief and did a media tour .

As the pawn shop owner said at the end of “ Don’t forget to let the devil know you’re dead “ —-“… what some people won’t do for money .”

My husband unexpectedly left after a long term marriage , with adult children .

I assure you OP’s comments are cliched , and ridiculous .

It’s humbling and sad to realize there were clues about the marriage defects for a LONG TIME , but OP, ( like me) DIDNT WANT TO FACE THE TRUTH .

What say you?

[quote]He married her for social connection, is this woman related to Kathleen Mortimer (Ambassador Harriman(Court of St.James-England during WW2 daughter-Harriman fortune)

She was her maternal step-grandmother.

He married her for her money but realized the money wasn't worth it.

Nora Ephron did it better.

You can't relate to these people through the lens of a normal lifestyle. It's like Rupert Murdoch's email to Jerry Hall saying, Dear Jerry, the time has come for us to end our marriage. My lawyer will be in touch with yours." She also was apparently blindsided.

[quote] He married her for her money but realized the money wasn't worth it.

Sounds like he got a step up on life from being associated with her and can now make his own money, due to connections he made from being in her circle.

Aaaaand it comes full circle.

Belle's got another beef!

I said earlier that the kids were UES. That's not correct. I meant Belle grew up on the UES. Belle and her kids now live down at Chambers and Broadway and Henry lives around the corner on the southside of City Hall. Apologies.

Not a day goes by, OP.

R327 is correct. Any man who comes into your office, kisses you, and plans on marrying you in a few weeks is looking for something else.

He wanted to check off a box - marry a wealthy, connected socialite to help him and his career. Seriously. That's got to be like 90%.

Then he became successful and was tired of dealing with her social life and what comes with marrying a woman like that.

Seriously - this isn't hard. And I can't believe her real name is FLOBELLE! Jesus christ.

They're both so fucking bland - god damn - someone bring some hot sauce.

Flo does not have to work and would have been looking for a husband at that age. That gesture was made to ensnare her before Flo moved out his range, he paired it with the OTT offer of protection. Irresistible. Cold. Calculating . Grifty.

Flo insists she had no idea why he moved on. In the same piece, she said she received a phone call from the husband of a woman who was having an affair with her husband.

Flo, you got the answer even if you didn't want to accept it.

We have no idea what Henry's relationship to his daughters is like. For all we know, they might not blame him. This drama is old news with no update/closure.