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Years ago, I remember hearing that it’s often what we choose not to look at in our lives that rules our lives.
Never was I more reminded of that than when reading the hot bestselling memoir, Strangers, by Belle Burden. Much of the focus of both the book’s overwhelming praise—and some of its criticism—is that it tells the story of Burden’s marriage to a man who up and left her and their three children and did so while also trying to wholly control their financial situation.
The reader learns that Burden came of age in a family that reached the pinnacle of wealth and when she entered into the marriage, she assumed she and her husband would share their resources. However, the reader learns her shock and horror that he kept much in his name only, denying her shared access and resources.
Upon finishing the book, some readers have said it’s all about the finances and whether or not Burden provided an accurate account of what happened, while other readers insist the story isn’t about the money at all but rather about her ex-husband suddenly exiting his family’s life. Some headlines of stories about the book have claimed that Burden has gotten women to pay closer attention to their financial realities in marriage and to also get angry with their own husbands, generating a marriage revolution of sorts. Her book is seen as a cautionary tale—a clarion call to other women to take charge of their finances and not rely on a man to do it. The thing is, though, the book should also be a clarion call to women to pay much closer attention in the early stages of a relationship to what a man reveals, asks, and does. As we’ll see, apparently, Burden herself still needs to learn this lesson.
The Overlooked Heart of the Matter: Emotional Abuse in Relationships
This post focuses on something that seems to get too little attention and is actually at the heart of the matter. It’s not just the financial aspect of their marriage to which Burden closed her eyes. It’s something else by which so many women get seduced, blinded, and controlled. Swept up in a rushed romance, Burden didn’t see all the danger signs. As someone who has spent a lifetime researching, publishing, and teaching about dating and domestic abuse and having been a counselor for abusive men for many years, it is very clear the extent to which Burden’s ex-husband provided numerous early clues to his emotionally abusive behavior. The financial control is only possible because of how it’s fully built on emotional abuse and manipulation, exactly the tactics he used very early on.
It’s not a coincidence that this book would become so popular at the same time that The White Lotus series also surged in popularity over the years. In both the book and the series, we are witnesses to people dripping with wealth and making bad decisions at every turn. Burden identifies two ways in which her ex-husband controlled the relationship: by abruptly leaving and then by causing financial upheaval. In describing her ex-husband’s behaviors, Burden’s narrative oddly normalizes and romanticizes them despite how glaringly controlling they were.
Research shows that a fast courtship is a primary predictor of problems ahead. Instant intimacy is often followed by disillusion. This is because the abuser is rushing time and preventing the other person from adequately getting to know them and to be exposed to how they handle difficult problems. It’s a whirlwind, a blur that obscures the clarity of vision needed to assess a relationship in its early stages. Burden tells the reader that after three weeks, her ex-husband said “Tell me you love me.” And she did. Not only is that very little time to develop such feelings, it’s also deeply revealing how he worded it, demanding this, needing this immediate validation from her, rather than taking the emotional risk and generously expressing his love and affection for her. He steered them, and accelerated, down the emotional path of his choosing, claiming her reality, controlling the frame. It seems he reinforced this when she shares that, “He asked me often, ‘I make you so happy, right?'”
Burden discloses her attraction: “Evidence of the bad boy remained… he told me stories of the many women in his wake, some of them stalking him, unable to accept his rejection. This narrative was sexy to me, the former rebel dressed in a suit, the problem child landing at an elite law firm, the heartbreaker. He was the perfect combination of exciting and safe.” Later, she described how he promised to take care of her, convincing her that she found her “knight.” Burden needed to ask herself why his ex-girlfriends resorted to these behaviors, in other words, what sort of emotional insecurity and chaos had he created that continually reproduced this? When women hear a man talk like this about other women and their relationship histories, it should give us pause; yet, within a page of telling that story, Burden shared that’s when she knew she wanted to marry this man.
Recognizing and Responding to Red Flags
Burden asks: “Were there red flags? The subtle or not subtle warnings I should have seen before we married, the ones people ask me about now, wanting something—anything—to prove that our fate could have been predicted, that the same thing couldn’t happen to them? … But these felt like stories of a rebellious boy becoming a responsible man; the normal mysteries of a three-dimensional human being. There is nothing I look back on now and say, How could I have missed that?” Herein lies the book’s most disturbing and perplexing admission.
Part of Burden’s goal, as she describes it, is to help other women feel less alone and more supported, which is admirable. But the problem is that a book like this, reaching this number of people, while not reflecting on the continuum of control and emotional abuse that started in courtship and carried through until he left and beyond, doesn’t feel fully responsible. After all, divorce is a process that has patterns that begin in courtship and reverberate throughout.
Emotional Abuse Essential Reads
Another part of the book that has garnered a lot of attention is when Burden tells the story of when she and her ex-husband went to tell their children about their impending divorce and in the midst of it, he asks her to make him a sandwich. It seems so unbelievable, so filled with chutzpah. But I was reminded of a friend and former colleague who did an important research study on men who killed their partners, and one man shared in an interview that immediately after killing his partner, he went to Dunkin’ Donuts and bought a half-dozen donuts—three of his favorite flavor and three of his deceased wife’s. When I first heard the story, it struck me as so delusional and also so tragic. In both Burden’s case and in this one, these men were completely disconnected from reality.
Burden makes it possible for readers to simultaneously stay connected to the myriad ways she loved her ex-husband and the ways that in the end she came to discover that perhaps she never knew him at all, that he was indeed a stranger. But we never learn qualities about him that would indeed be so lovable and instead we see how she fell in love with his image and the image of family they’d create. While this book is regarded as a cautionary tale about finances and leaving, it should be a cautionary tale about becoming a more careful observer during the earliest parts of a relationship, staying as connected as possible to the realities that are presented before ever falling prey to infidelity, attempts at financial destruction, and abandonment.
