Pod Insights Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones How One Woman Turned Divorce and Financial Collapse Into a Bestselling Memoir (ft. Belle Burden) About this episode When Belle Burden started writing after her husband left her with no explanation, and no money, she couldn't stop. And when she sat down to talk to Haley for this recording, they couldn't stop! Not only is Burden's phenom bestseller 'Strangers' a Memoir of Marriage (and Divorce), it's first and foremost a memoir of MONEY. Haley and Belle sit down for a fiercely honest financial interview, where they discuss the pre-nup mistake that allowed Belle's ex to leave her with nothing, the generational legacy of infidelity and financial trauma, and what it means to be financially independent after decades of marriage.
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Transcript 13,292 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 I think it's a real red flag. It doesn't mean your husband is going to walk out the way mine did. But if you ask the questions and ask to be included and ask to understand where the assets are and whose name is on them, and they don't want to tell you, that is a real red flag. And you should really talk to some like a professional to try and understand what's going on financially in your marriage.
0:26 Haley Sacks? What's up, rich people? It's me Haley, AKA Mrs. Dow Jones, and this is Financial Tea.
0:34 Haley Sacks? Okay, so I just gave my apartment a major refresh. And hands down, the hardest thing to get right was the rug. I just couldn't find one that fit right. And I really wanted something that pulled the room together because like a rug is a big deal. But then I found Ernesta. And Ernesta's amazing, you guys. It makes designer quality rugs custom cut to the exact size of your space. So it actually fits instead of almost fits and looks great the first time. Like in the past, I've just defaulted to stock sizes when buying rugs. And also, like when you're in a New York City apartment, that really just doesn't cut it, but they're all weirdly shaped. But with Ernesta, you can send photos and dimension to Ernesta's design
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1:41 Speaker 02 The other day, I was going through my desk, and I found a journal right from when I graduated. And it had pen and paper, how much I spent each day. At this time, I think I was making around $40,000 and access cash flow was pretty tight. So I had to watch every penny. I think about how far we've come with technology and advancements.
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3:11 Haley Sacks? Welcome back to Financial Tea Sippers. This is the podcast where I teach you how to build wealth with a side of market drama, money scandals, and of course, financial pop culture. Now, if you follow Mrs. Dow Jones, you know that a prenup is my Roman Empire. Like, I always say, I'm doing PR for prenups. I love them. I think everyone should have one. It's a non-negotiable. But in today's episode, we're going to explore what happens when you have the elite education, the high society pedigree, the trust funds, yes, plural, and the quote unquote, perfect life, only to realize that you have been locked out of your own damn bank account. In 2020, a modern love column in the New York Times went absolutely nuclear.
3:55 Haley Sacks? It introduced the world to Belle Burden, a woman who is essentially American royalty. Like, we're talking Vanderbilt descendant, granddaughter of the iconic Babe Paley, and a literal lawyer. On paper, Belle was the person least likely to be financially Vulnerable, but overnight at the start of the global pandemic, the narrative exploded. Her husband of 20 years left and Belle was forced to confront the most terrifying financial reality that she had completely abdicated her agency. Despite the fancy vacations and the Martha's Vineyard house, she was standing on a trapdoor with basically no cord to pull.
4:36 Haley Sacks? She had signed a bad prenup and was on the verge of having to leave her home while her husband got to keep everything that he made during the marriage and give her nothing. And he had made a lot of money. And I just want to say like kudos to Belle because it's rare, and I do mean rare, that someone from this level of wealth. I mean, it's rare that anyone is so open financially, but I do feel especially when you are come from a lot of money. It's rare to really find someone who's willing to get into the messy, unvaried details of their financial collapse. Like, some people might even find it embarrassing or shameful, but Belle owned this completely. And she wrote her memoir, Strangers, which if you haven't read it, it's incredible. You will read it in one day and it's not just a bestseller.
5:21 Haley Sacks? Like, it is truly a manual on why trusting him is not a financial strategy. And by the way, there's a huge Hollywood war for the rights. And the rumors are that Gwyneth Paltrow wants to play the lead, which if you're watching this on YouTube, you will totally get because Belle like has Gwyneth Paltrow energy. She is Gorgina. But yeah, I guess the cat's out of the bag. Belle is here to talk to us about what it actually feels like to rebuild your entire financial identity from scratch when the world thinks that you have it all. And then have a hit memoir come from it that Hollywood is fighting over. But first, let's get into the MDJ market report to see where the money is moving this week.
5:57 Haley Sacks? Okay, first things first, because I know that if you are watching this, you are a sipper and you like a good deal. When you preorder my book, Future Rich Person, The New Rules for Building Wealth, even if you are stuck, broke, and that billionaire won't text you back, you get over $700 of freebies as a thank you. Like, you are going to get access to my top three guides and courses that are going to help you get even more rich. Like, My step-by-step guide to traveling for free with credit card points, my viral tax guide that helps you pay less to Uncle Sam, all my buy versus rent calculators. The list goes on and on. We are releasing new freebies every week. So seriously, when you preorder, you really do sort of unlock the keys to the Mrs. Dow Jones Castle
6:40 Haley Sacks? and you get access to so many products. Plus, you will be helping me achieve my goal of becoming a New York Times bestseller, which would just make Little Haley so proud. So I'm really excited. Make sure that you go to mrsdowjones.com/book to preorder. Also, like, the book is so necessary. I'm sorry, this is not our parents' economy. Times have changed so much, but financial advice is stuck in the past. And that is why I wrote this. It teaches you how to grow wealth in 2026 the modern way, whether you want to rent instead of buy, you want to have kids later, you want to start your own business. Everything that's not covered in traditional finance books, including how to deal with such an unstable economy, is in Future Rich Person.
7:24 Haley Sacks? So go to mrsdowjones.com/book to get and get those $700 worth of freebies ASAP. Thank you so much. Okay, so now let's get into the market report because we have some really juicy tea this week. First of all, I just want to talk about Tom Brady because guys, like, he is giving gold. Like, Tom Brady and gold have a lot in common, like, obvious. And just go with me on this because this is sort of where I cook. When we bring a pop culture analogy in with some financial information, like, that is the Mrs. Dow Jones way. So let's do this. Tom Brady was obviously spotted with Alex Earl starting New Year's
8:05 Haley Sacks? and then multiple times after that, right after she broke up with Braxton Berrios. And now, this last week, he was seen leaving a party at Jeff and Lauren Bezos's LA mansion with Dialle Cohen Braun, aka Scooter Braun's ex-wife. And like, obviously, Scooter Braun is running around town with Sydney Sweeney. So pretty much the only way to get back at him is to hook up with Tom Brady. And that's what made me think, like, Tom Brady- If he was an asset would be gold because like when markets get volatile, investors flee to gold. And when relationships end and you need to get back at your ex, apparently you flee to Tom Brady. Like, gold doesn't grow your portfolio either.
8:47 Haley Sacks? It doesn't disrupt anything. It just is. It's stable. It's shiny. It's universally recognized as valuable. And you don't also build a future with gold. Like, it's not a growth asset. And I feel like the same thing is true with Tom Brady. Like, no one is getting with Tom Brady being like, yeah, we're gonna be together forever. You're just with him for a moment and because he is a store of value until you are ready for your next move. So I really feel like we need to think about Tom Brady not as a growth stock. He's not a risky bet. He is the flight to safety. He is that shiny store of value that you park your feelings in while you figure out what's next. He doesn't really have any yield, just like gold. You don't earn anything from it.
9:32 Haley Sacks? It just basically like stops the bleeding and looks good in the meantime. Because let's be real, when you're coming off a loss, the last thing that you want is another risky investment. You want something liquid, stable, shiny, that looks good. And right now, in the breakup market, Tom Brady is basically the gold standard. So remember, store of value, not a growth asset, but something that's just like, good in the portfolio, nice to have if you could afford it, but not what you're gonna retire with. Our second story on the market report is about everyone's favorite boy with a lower back tattoo, Ben Affleck. Yes, Netflix is acquiring Interpositive, the AI filmmaking startup that he co-founded,
10:12 Haley Sacks? in a deal that could reach $600 million, making it one of the streaming giant's largest acquisitions ever. Oh, and the entire 16-person team is going to join Netflix and Affleck is going to serve as a senior advisor. But here's what makes this actually interesting. Like, Interpositive has been in stealth mode since Affleck started it in 2022. Like, I don't know about you, but I didn't know Ben Affleck was quietly building an AI company for three years. Like, you mean the guy best known for being Photograph looking miserable at Dunkin' Donuts was secretly a tech founder like what? But it's not generative AI that's going to like replace writers and directors. It's a post-production tool for filmmakers.
10:55 Haley Sacks? So in a moment where Hollywood is like terrified of AI, Affleck built something with the message of like, we're here to protect creative choice. We're not going to replace it. And I feel like that's a really calculated good move. And what's also sort of exclusive is that Netflix plans to offer access to Interpositives tech only to its creative partners, but won't sell commercially. So I feel like it's like another reason that people will want to work with Netflix. Very interesting stuff. And also like shout out to Ben Affleck and Jen Gardner, because she just like had her company go public on the New York Stock Exchange. So I just feel like as a divorced couple, they are killing it. But mostly I'm obsessed with their son, Samuel, because he once asked them for $2,000 to buy shoes. But that's for another market report.
11:38 Haley Sacks? Okay, our third story honestly makes me really nervous and should be illegal. Like you guys know that I hate buy now, pay later. Well, my new enemy of state is prediction markets. And specifically how they are targeting women. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about this. Female users now make up 26% of Cal She's participant base, which is up 13% from just 10 months ago. And the way that they have been doing this is by paying female influencers to post their trades publicly. And they have been throwing events built around pop culture themes. And of course, hiring Kendall Jenner for a Super Bowl ad didn't hurt either. This honestly sucks because it's working. Like Cal She's Oscar trading volume hit 48.4 million this year.
12:21 Haley Sacks? And Polymarket hit $57 million. And I just feel like the end game is sort of your rent money. And this is something that we do need to stay away from and villainize at all costs. And it's annoying because they took the thing that we enjoy as women, pop culture, and they made it about predictions and having opinions and turned it into a customer acquisition strategy. But obviously as a sipper, you're too smart to fall for this. We keep our money in the actual market, not the prediction market. Do not bet on things, buy stocks instead. Trust me, it's going to make you way more rich in the long term. Data shows that you are literally throwing away money when you do this. Like you
13:03 Haley Sacks? will not win. And then the fourth story is unfortunately, the war of Iran, which is ongoing. No end in sight as of Monday morning. Oil prices are through the roof. The Trump administration is giving us no clear understanding of what their plan is here. I don't even know if they have a plan. And if you're like me, you probably feel a little helpless because there's not really much to do except pray for our troops and the Iranian people. Book flights as soon as possible because prices are going up and honestly, fill our gas tanks because prices are also going up on that too. But you know, oil shocks are not going to just stay at the pump here. Like shipping costs are also going to go up. Consumer goods are going to go up. Like inflation that we finally
13:46 Haley Sacks? thought was cooling down is going to come back with vengeance. And I just feel like this is the worst because people just started feeling okay a little bit about prices again. And this is the thing that is going to unravel that. And so I don't know, there's not a lot that you can control right now. One lever that we do have is our personal finances. So I would say like lock in prices where you can. If you can buy in bulk now, good idea. And don't make emotional money decisions. Remember that like this macro chaos is exactly when having a financial foundation also matters the most. So bulk up that emergency fund and make sure that you focus on creating your own
14:25 Haley Sacks? safety net because of all this instability, you can actually make sure that your life vest is on just by doing that. Okay, now let's get into our interview with Bell Burden because you guys, this was like the best interview that I've ever done. I think that my jaw was on the floor the entire time. She is truly so vulnerable. I learned so much about her. I feel like she's teaching us all something so important about finances. And if you have not read her book, Strangers, or listened to it, she does audiobook, it's so good. Make sure that you do that because it is like you'll finish it in a day or two. It's so good. You're gonna binge it. Okay, let's go talk
15:06 Haley Sacks? Welcome to Financial Tea, Belle Burden.
15:10 Speaker 00 I'm so happy to be here. I'm really excited about this.
15:13 Haley Sacks? This is like my white whale interview. Like I, I am so excited that you're here. Your book, Strangers, I literally read it, I think in one day, every, I cannot go to a dinner to talk to anyone like without someone saying, oh, have you read this book? Oh, I just finished Strangers. Like everyone recommending it to the other person as though I don't know. As though I wasn't like, you know.
15:39 Speaker 00 You were very early.
15:40 Haley Sacks? I was early. I was, I let it be known. Like I knew about this book and like it is on the cover. We have it over here. It says, "A Memoir of Marriage." But why I wanted to have you on the show is because to me it is a memoir of money.
15:53 Speaker 00 Yes, I agree with that, Haley. I think it is probably the most important storyline in the book, which is part of why I was so excited to come on your podcast because I think you're doing such important work in getting an entire generation excited about being, having autonomy over their money. And that's really an important part of my growth in this book.
16:18 Haley Sacks? For the three people listening who haven't read your incredible memoir, and it's going to be zero by the time this airs because they're going to hear this and want to read it. Can you give us a high level of strangers and what happened?
16:30 Speaker 00 Sure. So it opens in March of 2020, the second week of COVID lockdown. I believed I was very happily married. I was on Martha's Vineyard with my husband and my two daughters. Very cozy time. And I got a call from someone saying that his wife was having an affair with my husband. And initially, my husband was very apologetic, but by the morning, he had packed a bag. He said he thought he was happy, but he wasn't. He thought he wanted our life, but I didn't. He didn't. And he walked out of our house and left the island and became someone I did not recognize at all. But part of my story is a financial story and what I agreed to before we got married in our prenup,
17:13 Speaker 00 what I went through in our divorce to keep what was mine. And then how I rebuilt my own financial autonomy after divorce.
17:22 Haley Sacks? Let's start like with what your life was like before the divorce because you were living like a fabulous New York life, sort of like we had apartment in Tribeca, we had house in Martha's Vineyard, like where were we vacationing? Like, give us like the scoop of like what the lifestyle was.
17:38 Speaker 00 Sure, I think it was a life that people would envy. We were married, we got married in 1999. We had three children.
17:47 Haley Sacks? He's like hot, tall lawyer. You meet him, you're like, yeah, like, okay.
17:52 Speaker 00 I had a boyfriend when we met who was unemployed and then I started working, I was at a big corporate law firm called Davis Polk in Midtown Manhattan. And I started working in the group that my future husband was in and we started working on an IPO together. And we got engaged within three months, got married within the year. The kids went to private school in the city downtown. We went on vacations to Hawaii, to the Caribbean, that kind of thing. My husband left the law and started working in for a fund of funds and then moved to a hedge fund. And he had this big career that we were very, very focused
18:36 Speaker 00 on. It kind of became the family enterprise.
18:39 Haley Sacks? Yeah, it was all like in service of like.
18:42 Speaker 00 All in service.
18:43 Haley Sacks? Like let him do his work. Like it's like.
18:45 Speaker 00 Came first.
18:46 Haley Sacks? Yes.
18:47 Speaker 00 Always.
18:47 Haley Sacks? So crazy.
18:49 Speaker 00 And I had decided to keep my law license. I worked for a time for my brother and I always did volunteer work, sometimes actually doing legal cases. But I was very focused on the kids, on raising the kids. So yes, like his work came first. It came before parent teacher conferences. He worked on weekends. It was the family enterprise.
19:14 Haley Sacks? Talk us through what it was like to go through the prenup process with him.
19:18 Speaker 00 Yes, so I had two trust funds. My father had died two years earlier in 1996. My dad was a spender. Yeah. He was a real spender. So actually, when he died, he was very much in debt. We sold his company and we ended up being fine. But I had trusts from my grandfather on my mother's side and my grandfather on my father's side. And my family was was known in New York, you know, in some circles. And so when I met my future husband and we fell in love, he had almost no money and I had these two big trust funds. So there was sort of this inequity.
20:02 Speaker 00 My mother, when she inherited money from her stepfather, made my brother and I sign a contract, actually, agreeing that the three of us would have prenups when we got married. And my brother and I did not even have serious relationships at that point. But we had agreed to this, which in retrospect was actually quite smart because I just said, I have to have a prenup. Like, I signed an agreement that I would have a prenup. Really smart, but he was very upset by it. He did not want to, you know, he felt like he was this young man arriving to this relationship. And like, the prenup was a statement that I needed to be protected from him. Which you did.
20:44 Speaker 00 Which, yes, which, yeah, it turns out I did. But that was hurtful to him, as prenups are, can be very hurtful to people entering a marriage because they feel like they're suddenly suspected of something. But really, they are a way to kind of force a conversation about money and what will happen if the relationship ends, which I think we should all be having that conversation. So my lawyer sent my then fiancee a copy of a prenup, very standard prenup, same one my brother and his wife had signed. And he got his own lawyer. And then they sat on it for a while, for a good two months.
21:26 Haley Sacks? That's what made me so anxious.
21:27 Speaker 00 Yes, it made me really anxious. And so the wedding date is coming, right? It's coming really fast. It's like three weeks away.
21:33 Haley Sacks? That's really crazy. Invites are out and it's like.
21:37 Speaker 00 Invites are out and you feel so much pressure.
21:40 Haley Sacks? You're like, well, I want, I want to do this.
21:42 Speaker 00 Yep. And if we don't sign it.
21:44 Haley Sacks? Then it's a huge.
21:45 Speaker 00 It's a huge problem. The change that he asked for was that anything earned during the marriage would not be marital property, would not be split unless we affirmatively decided to put it into joint name. So the way he explained it made sense to me. He said, we, you know, we'll just keep what's ours, but then we'll make decisions during the course of the relationship, whether to put things in joint name or not. So it made sense to me, but I called my lawyer, who's at a big New York law firm, and he said, do not do that. That is really not smart. You're planning to be home with kids, he's going into finance, this could really hurt you. But I'm listening to him, I'm looking at the man I love, who's going to be my husband,
22:29 Speaker 00 the father of my children. He was a very mild mannered, very kind man, and I trusted him. And I wanted to get married.
22:37 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
22:38 Speaker 00 So after some conversation, my lawyer said, okay, if this is what you want, and we made the change. And I have all the, you know, black lines and everything from that time where I made this change. And I was married to my husband for 20, almost 21 years. And for those entire 21 years, I, somewhere in my head, I knew that change was really bad for me. And, you know, when you're like, just have something that like continues to bother you and worry you and haunts you, even if it's not at the forefront of your brain. And I knew it was there. And we had discussed, we discussed over the years getting rid of it, but we never actually got rid of it.
23:20 Haley Sacks? That was something I thought was so interesting in the book was you had a big financial aha moment.
23:26 Speaker 00 Yes.
23:27 Haley Sacks? Which I talk a lot about in my book that's coming out, which is like, I think every person has to have when they decide to take control of their finances. And we'll get to what that was for you.
23:35 Speaker 00 Yep.
23:35 Haley Sacks? But like before that, you were definitely like the, you know, veil was over your eyes. You were, it was, you know, you were living, like, you weren't aware of things in the same way that you are now.
23:47 Haley Sacks? Correct, yes.
23:48 Speaker 00 Yes, and I think that there was something, I think, because my father had died. I think that there was something romantic, almost, about handing this over to him. It felt like this, he was, he was like the man in the gray flannel suit who had arrived.
24:06 Haley Sacks? Yes.
24:06 Speaker 00 And he said to me, I'm going to take care of you. So there was something that felt like wonderful about that. And I think also because of our financial inequity, I was conscious of wanting to make him feel good and feel important.
24:20 Haley Sacks? Oh.
24:21 Speaker 00 And I think as women, we do that, right?
24:22 Haley Sacks? We totally do.
24:24 Speaker 00 It becomes connected to their self-esteem.
24:26 Haley Sacks? Yeah, you want to make yourself a little smaller so that they can feel bigger.
24:30 Speaker 00 Bigger. And for us, that was really around money.
24:33 Haley Sacks? Because he had all that trauma too. He came in with his own shit.
24:36 Speaker 00 He came in with his own financial trauma, which was that his family essentially went broke when he was a child. And he grew up around a lot of wealth, but really the family really struggling and trying to hide it.
24:51 Haley Sacks? Trying to hide it.
24:52 Speaker 00 Yes, and like trying, you know, going to expensive schools, but not being able to pay bills, that kind of thing. And so that was in him. And over the course of our marriage, as I kind of handed that off to him, you start to, or I started to believe I couldn't understand it, even though I'm a former corporate lawyer. I paid our bills, but I, and I signed our tax returns, but I didn't read them. And I didn't ask him what his bonuses were. And I just trusted and trusted and trusted. And I thought, oh, it's just so complicated. Only he can understand it.
25:31 Haley Sacks? Yes, 100%. I think that that is like so textbook.
25:36 Speaker 00 Yes.
25:36 Haley Sacks? Before you have that financial aha, where you just sort of feel like, this is not for me. I don't have the right DNA for it. I used, my version of it was like, I, I didn't think that like, like there was always like those girls in school, like the perfect handwriting and like the organized backpacks. And like, they were just so on top of things. And I was always such a mess. Like I was, you know, the most like, type B person using my passport to get into the bar, because I don't know. Where my license was like, like they're just everything pointed to like, this is not a girl who's going to be good with her money.
26:02 Speaker 00 Right.
26:02 Haley Sacks? So I thought, okay, fine. Let, uh, my dad will take care of it. I'll marry someone who will do it.
26:06 Speaker 00 Yeah.
26:07 Haley Sacks? Whatever. And then whatever, something happens, you get, your marriage falls apart or something. And you realize, okay, no, actually I have to do this.
26:14 Speaker 00 Right. You're forced.
26:15 Haley Sacks? You're forced. And then you actually realize, wait, this is not that hard.
26:18 Speaker 00 It's not that hard.
26:19 Haley Sacks? I've been catfished. It's not hard at all. Like.
26:21 Speaker 00 And it's fantastic to be in charge of it.
26:24 Haley Sacks? Both things so true. Like, but the not that hard is like the biggest one where I'm like, you could have totally understood a tax return. Like, come on.
26:30 Speaker 00 I, I did. I worked on like, you know, prospectuses. Like I can read a tax return.
26:35 Haley Sacks? A million percent.
26:36 Speaker 00 But he would hand it to me and I would sign it.
26:37 Haley Sacks? And he probably was like, ooh, like you don't like, this is not for you.
26:40 Speaker 00 Yeah. It's very subtle.
26:42 Haley Sacks? Yes.
26:42 Speaker 00 You know, the way it happens, but they're like, don't worry about it.
26:46 Haley Sacks? A hundred percent.
26:47 Speaker 00 Don't worry about it.
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27:50 Haley Sacks? Do you think that when he added that provision into the prenup, he knew you well enough to know that like you would never have those conversations with him about like, oh, well, with this specific deal, we'll make it so it's joint property?
28:03 Speaker 00 I think that it's hard to know how much he was planning.
28:07 Haley Sacks? Yeah. That must be hard to think about.
28:10 Speaker 00 Yeah. And I try to hold both things in my head that we really loved each other and had a very happy marriage for a long period of time. But that he was pretty much programmed from long before the time he met me to really protect himself financially. And I think that was at play in the prenup. I think that was at play at every stage in our marriage. And I think that when he earned money, like when he got a bonus, there was no part of him that was ever going to put it into joint name.
28:40 Haley Sacks? No, like you were using your trust to pay for the children's school, for the, for the houses. And he was building like a vintage Rolex collection.
28:50 Speaker 00 He was building his, the things that he cared about. And I come from a family where people are just very generous. We always pick up the checks. We like, you know, and, and the men are very generous. And I assumed that that's what I was marrying as well. And when we bought our apartment in Tribeca in 2000, I had to apply essentially, write a formal letter to the trustees of the trust to release funds for me to buy the apartment. You had to like make the case that it was a legitimate purpose. And they released the funds.
29:34 Speaker 00 And instead of actually, the trust could have actually bought the apartment and would have stayed in trust. But I had the funds withdrawn and I immediately decided to put both of our names on the deed. Because I thought that's what you do in a marriage. And I thought we were both going to share everything. So your listeners, your viewers are probably seeing where this is going if they haven't read the book, which is that I did that again with my other trust for our house. So I have moved all of my primary assets into real estate. And again, with the house and Martha's Vineyard, I put both our names on the deed. And I felt like I was doing something so important for our marriage, for our family,
30:19 Speaker 00 that I was curing something for him where he had lost real estate and that I was giving him a home and this, you know, this wonderful thing that I, because I wasn't working, that I could contribute this. Meanwhile, I was splitting all expenses too.
30:36 Haley Sacks? And he was making you like talk through every expense, but he never had to. Like, explain that, the accounting, because that was so crazy.
30:44 Speaker 00 With credit cards, we had a bookkeeper. And so he, and I just, I assumed he was doing it for the bookkeeper too, but I would write down what every single charge was for.
30:55 Haley Sacks? That'd drive me crazy.
30:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, it was like a subtle thing that feels protective, like we're, he was very like, had a strong hand on our spending, like did not want us to spend too much, which felt like protection. But the flip side of that is that it is controlling. It's really controlling of what, what I, you know, what, it just was like these eyes on me and I didn't have the same eyes on him.
31:24 Haley Sacks? And it's also so interesting because like you were, you didn't need to have any eyes on you because you had your own money. Like, it's like, okay, I'm, I'll have some eyes on me, like whatever you want, babe. Like, I totally got that. I think that's such an easy trap to fall into. At what point do you think that like your partnership did turn sort of into financial abdication? Like, was there a specific moment? You're saying it sort of happened slowly where you like stopped, you know, you realized you had stopped looking at the statements or was it, you know, this slow fade into the background?
31:56 Speaker 00 I don't know if I can point to a specific moment, but it happened fairly quickly. You know, it happened like as soon as we started having kids and I was focused on that. And I think I would attend financial meetings, like quarterly meetings. But I always felt like the financial advisors were speaking to him.
32:17 Haley Sacks? Oh, I hear that all the time too, from people.
32:20 Speaker 00 Yep.
32:20 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
32:20 Speaker 00 And with language that I couldn't quite follow.
32:24 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
32:25 Speaker 00 And I now have a financial advisor who speaks to me.
32:28 Haley Sacks? Which by the way, like if you are in any situation with like a financial professional or a lawyer or anything where you are accountant, that you feel like they aren't making sense to you, ask questions or get a different one.
32:42 Speaker 00 I agree.
32:43 Haley Sacks? I had to switch accountants. I had to switch lawyers because I'm like, look, I'm the boss.
32:48 Speaker 00 Yes.
32:48 Haley Sacks? I'm paying the bill. Like, I'm gonna get someone who can talk to me the way that I understand. Like, that's okay to ask for. I was at an event with Kelly Rowland from Destiny's Child, who has like a crazy financial story. And she said that like a big moment in her financial life that changed everything was when she just started to feel really comfortable, like looking stupid, like asking those questions.
33:10 Speaker 00 But you do feel stupid. You're like, I don't know what, you know, this return means. And I don't know what, you know, this bond means. And, and just asking those questions. And I finally, I have someone now who I can ask any question. Nothing is too dumb. And she's never condescending. And it's, it really feels so great. But at that time, so the, like, I was focused on kids. When I would go to meetings, I didn't really, no one was speaking to me. I didn't really understand what was happening. And that just builds on itself. That really builds on itself. And I, I don't think I'm alone in this. I've now been at book groups and different things, contemporaries, who have done the same thing.
33:54 Speaker 00 And what's exciting to me is they are now pushing their partners to have more transparency, to go to the meeting, to hopefully read the tax returns. I think for some people, it will lead to change. For others, there will be resistance from their partners. I think there is, you know, there is a discomfort when we ask a lot of questions and want to be included and want, because that means you have like a real partnership. And that can be uncomfortable for some men in particular.
34:27 Haley Sacks? Like if you ever got married again, like you would obviously get a firmer prenup, but like, would you see it as a red flag if someone acted the way that your husband did?
34:36 Speaker 00 Oh, 100%. I think it's a, I think it's a real red flag. I don't think I will get married again. I feel like I, the idea of co-mingling assets again is really unappealing to me. I'm so happy being in control of my own. So if I was in another relationship, I think I would keep it very separate. But yes, I do see it as a red flag. And I think it doesn't mean your husband is going to walk out the way mine did. But if you ask the questions and ask to be included and ask to understand where the assets are and whose name is on them, and they don't want to tell you, that is a real red flag. And you should really talk to some, like a professional to try and understand what's going on financially in your marriage.
35:21 Haley Sacks? Two things. First of all, what you don't realize if you're married is that you have the right to know all these things. And it's like you legally have that right, even if your husband or your partner is being shady. You're married, you can look.
35:32 Speaker 00 Yep. And especially if you're filing a joint return and
35:35 Haley Sacks? 100%.
35:36 Speaker 00 It's hard to be a cautionary tale, but I'm also happy to be a cautionary tale because I think what happened to me, if you read the book or just listen to my story, I had every reason to trust, every reason to feel like it was all going to be okay. And I ended up in my divorce, having
35:59 Speaker 00 it threatened until 45 minutes before trial that I would lose half of my house and half of my apartment and have to sell them. And that he had accumulated a lot of assets in his own name, a fortune, really. And he left the marriage with those assets. And luckily I was able to keep my homes.
36:19 Haley Sacks? Uh, first of all, I want you to know that I was in, I was in Martha's Vineyard during COVID. So we could have, we could have gone on walks.
36:25 Speaker 00 Oh, my God.
36:26 Haley Sacks? So I was going on so many walks and it was so lonely and like weird and
36:29 Speaker 00 It wasn't weird.
36:30 Haley Sacks? It was so weird there. And so like, like, let's just talk about the COVID pandemic. Like everyone always says in Sex and the City, the city is the fourth character, the fifth character.
36:38 Speaker 00 Yes.
36:39 Haley Sacks? I feel like COVID was like the third person in your marriage, sort of. So like, how did the backtrack of the backdrop of the pandemic affect your experience?
36:46 Speaker 00 I think it was um, an accelerator and an intensifier.
36:52 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
36:52 Speaker 00 Um, in all ways. Um, I do believe I probably would have gotten that phone call anyway. The marriage probably would have ended anyway, but it just kind of added this fuel to it that just, I think, made him really snap and, and leave.
37:07 Haley Sacks? Cause there's no escape route.
37:08 Speaker 00 There was no, he was gonna be stuck in that house with me, with us doing therapy on Zoom and like,
37:14 Haley Sacks? Yeah, like working on it.
37:15 Speaker 00 He was like, oh, don't wanna do it.
37:17 Haley Sacks? Don't wanna do that.
37:18 Speaker 00 Don't wanna do that.
37:19 Haley Sacks? But what if I left?
37:20 Speaker 00 Exactly. And that would have been not fun, but I was prepared to do it. And then for me, um,
37:26 Haley Sacks? But even that, like you would have done all the, you would never have left him.
37:29 Speaker 00 I don't, it's hard to know. I would have felt so betrayed by this affair. It's hard to know if I would have stayed in it. It really would have, I would have tried. And if he had come to that conversation, very regretful and, and saying, I really wanna stay in it. Yes.
37:46 Haley Sacks? So stressed. Yeah. I wanna be different.
37:48 Speaker 00 Exactly. Then I would have,
37:50 Haley Sacks? There's a lot of history.
37:51 Speaker 00 Exactly. I would have tried and I was in love with him. I love, really loved him.
37:54 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
37:55 Speaker 00 Um, and then the pandemic really um, made it emotionally a lot harder for me because my family and friends could not get to me.
38:03 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
38:03 Speaker 00 I wish I'd known you were there. I was all alone.
38:06 Haley Sacks? I would have been over. We could have done our walks together.
38:08 Speaker 00 Exactly.
38:09 Haley Sacks? I love that. Like I, well, we'll get to that. But like the way that you picked yourself up, I just feel like it's such a compelling part of the book.
38:14 Speaker 00 Yes. And literally had to pick myself up. I, I talk about the bathroom floor as kind of a metaphor, but I was literally on the bathroom floor because it's like the one place the kids can't find you. It's cold. You feel like you're not gonna fall through the earth.
38:26 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
38:26 Speaker 00 Um, but um, the, the benefit of the pandemic was that I had this protected time. Like I would walk down the street crying and I didn't have to go to school pickup. I didn't have to go to meetings. I could just really walk through the pain.
38:42 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
38:43 Speaker 00 Um, and like, Feel it, all of it, like every inch of it. And I think if I was in New York, like having
38:50 Haley Sacks? to like get dressed and like, yeah, I would have, it would have been, I would have been more
38:53 Speaker 00 avoidant of it. I think I would have had to have an audience for the whole thing, which would have been really painful. So in a way, even though I think, looking back on that time, it's so painful. There's something that feels like almost lovely about it, which sounds crazy, but just that I had this piece on this beautiful island where we watched, you know, spring arrive and, and the nature and the Ospreys, which I write about. There was, it was the right place for me to go through this, I think.
39:23 Haley Sacks? For women who are going through something similar, like it is so easy to distract yourself.
39:30 Speaker 00 Yes.
39:31 Haley Sacks? Cause who wants to deal with this? It's
39:33 Speaker 00 It's so unpleasant. Yes.
39:35 Haley Sacks? Anything but. Like, let me like do literally anything but, but it's like, that's the only way through.
39:42 Speaker 00 The only way through is like right through it.
39:44 Haley Sacks? And you had, of course, you had your therapist, but like you really did the work yourself. So like, what advice would you give in terms of like how to face something so head on? Cause it's quite brave.
39:53 Speaker 00 It was, um, it was, it could have gone either direction, right? You could really just like, it was very hard to get, yes, get out of bed. It was very hard to just move and keep going. I decided not to drink, which I would recommend to anybody because I just felt like it was gonna make me sadder during that period. Um, I do not like the phone, but I stayed in touch with really close friends who called me every single day. Um, my family, particularly my stepmother, who's a family therapist, was very helpful to me.
40:25 Haley Sacks? As like a character in the book.
40:27 Speaker 00 She's amazing. Yeah. Um, really great advice. And then a friend really encouraged me to start walking. And I think there is something very meditative, very like soothing about walking. And I would go one direction, eight miles one day, and the other direction, eight miles the next day. And just every single day I did it. And the other thing that really made a huge difference for me was, um, starting to work again, which was doing, I do pro bono immigration cases. And I had to file a case in family court in April. He left in March, in March. And I was a mess at first. But I think even just like refilling the paper tray, like having to write something, having to do a Zoom.
41:11 Speaker 00 It just brought me back to life a little bit, to who I am and to the, the writing that ended up figuring later. I think all of those things really helped, but I'll, I'll say one other thing, which was critical to my recovery, I think, which was about a week into it, he said, I think we should tell people that our split was amicable, that it was a joint decision. And I knew in that moment, I'm shy and private, you would have expected me to agree to that because it would be more flattering, right?
41:42 Haley Sacks? Yeah, yeah.
41:42 Speaker 00 To say, we both wanted to get divorced.
41:44 Haley Sacks? It was an us thing, yeah.
41:46 Speaker 00 Yes. But I just was like, I will not survive this if I lie about it. I cannot lie about it. So I said no to him, which shocked him. And then whenever I ran into people as they came back to the island, I would just be completely honest and say, he left. He walked out and I don't know why and I'm not doing well. And that, that was a theme that continued because it led to me writing about it. But I just have faced this openly and honestly from the first days. And to me, that felt like life and death. And I think it's why I have ended up where I am. Instead of hiding it, instead of like
42:26 Speaker 00 carrying the shame of it, I just have been really, I think it's made all the difference.
42:32 Haley Sacks? And talk to me a little bit, like, obviously, your ex-husband's betrayal is really at the crux of the story, but there were a lot of other betrayals that followed. Like, there is something really weird that happens when you go through something like this, which is like other people's reactions. Like, I'm thinking of your gynecologist who, while you can speak as well, you're in the stirrups, was like, well, if you were working, he would never have left you. Like, are you kidding me? The guy at dinner next to you? Like, talk to us about these.
43:01 Speaker 00 Crazy characters. There are, I think, when, and this is true for anyone going through a divorce, you suddenly go from being one thing, which is like a married woman with kids. Safe. And you're like included in things. Yes. And you're safe and people know what to do with you to being something very different, which is, in my case, not just a single woman, a divorced woman, or divorcing woman, but an abandoned woman. And some people are so wonderful and move towards you and like embrace you. And then it makes other people uncomfortable and they don't know what to do about it. So I had situations at the club where I'm a member where, that were very hurtful. You know, people saying it wasn't clear who should remain a member.
43:46 Speaker 00 I had things in New York where people were, you know, helping my ex find a lawyer. Pimple lawyer. Shark lawyer. Just what you want to hear from someone. Yeah, exactly. Oh, you're going through divorce? I just helped your husband find like the hardest, toughest lawyer in the world. The toughest lawyer in New York. Yeah, good luck. Yeah, exactly. That's so crazy. It was really, I just, and I was so. You're vulnerable. I was raw and vulnerable. And you, you could say like, oh, she was so sensitive, but I look back on them and I'm like, no, that was like really, that was hard. Yeah, no. And the gynecologist absolutely said that and I, other, other people said the same thing about working. And I think people do that because it makes them feel safe, right? Like to say.
44:30 Speaker 00 They could, they could tell that for you. Oh, I'm working, so it's not going to happen to me. I have a new gynecologist, you'll be happy to hear. I am very happy to hear. Yes, we could talk to the other one. So yes, there were these smaller betrayals that really put me off balance and like, put me back on the floor for, for a period of time, but I just kept going. And then I had to move into the divorce, actual divorce. Yeah. Which was its own sort of series of shocks. And, you know, financial awakenings that were painful and hard to face. But. Getting to the other side of that was the best thing.
45:12 Haley Sacks? Yeah, I mean Stella got her group back.
45:13 Speaker 00 Yes.
45:14 Haley Sacks? Stella's got a best seller. Stella's got a Hollywood movie deal. Like Stella's killing it. But like you've publicly owned your financial shame, which is really rare. So well, actually, let's start first at like the actual divorce.
45:25 Speaker 00 Yes.
45:25 Haley Sacks? So you, I, at what point did you realize, like, you're obviously really upset that he left? You're heartbroken, but then was there also like a part of you where you were like, ooh, and I may be totally fucked financially?
45:37 Speaker 00 Yes.
45:38 Haley Sacks? Like, when did you realize that? And like, talk through like how that played out because the divorce was messy.
45:43 Speaker 00 The divorce was, it was surprisingly quick, but it was quick and messy and terrifying for me.
45:52 Haley Sacks? Terrifying for me as a reader.
45:54 Speaker 00 Yes, really, really terrifying. So I knew that there was the prenup. He was looking for the prenup within a month.
46:02 Haley Sacks? Back to Martha's Vineyard and was like rifling through all the stuff.
46:04 Speaker 00 Yes.
46:05 Haley Sacks? You're like, say hello to your daughter.
46:06 Speaker 00 Telling the kids about the divorce.
46:10 Speaker 00 He found the prenup. He asked the court to enforce the prenup. And I realized, and at the same time, we get discovery, you know, so all of his accounts that are not yet marked to market or anything, but there I get a sense of the wealth that he has built over these 20 years.
46:30 Haley Sacks? Of wealth at least.
46:31 Speaker 00 Yes.
46:31 Haley Sacks? Yes. I know we can't say exact things, but I think we can say.
46:34 Speaker 00 But at least eight figures for sure.
46:36 Haley Sacks? At least we're saying.
46:37 Speaker 00 Um, and he, um, he had built that up and every account, I just started, you know, I was going through the discovery and I was like, every single account is in his name. Like, of course, it's all in his name and none of it's in my name and my assets are in the, in this real estate and.
46:58 Haley Sacks? And it's totally legal that this happened because I said that it was okay.
47:01 Speaker 00 I signed it. My name is on that prenup. And I had some assets outside of those trusts, but his is dwarfed. And then when he asked for the prenup to be enforced, he was claiming his half of both those properties. And I did not have enough money to buy him out of those properties. So I would have had to sell them while I'm trying to keep my kids' lives stable.
47:31 Speaker 00 And I'm always conscious of saying, as I talk about this, that still, my situation is so much better than 99% of the world. Like, I had cushion, I had, you know, it was gonna be okay. I knew I was gonna be okay. But it was very devastating because I thought we were pulling in the same direction. I thought he valued my contributions to his career, to our family over 20 years. And when I saw what had happened and what he was asking the court to do, I just thought, he never valued it. He never, he is, he
48:11 Speaker 00 wants to take every single thing that he's entitled to and is not concerned at all about my financial well-being. And in fact, may view this as almost a contest to win. Like, he is, he is playing to win in this. And I felt tremendous shame because this was money that my father and grandfather had given me and entrusted to me, and I was going to lose half of it. And I had been in this marriage for all these years and had never asked the questions I should have asked about getting rid of the prenup, about what his bonuses were, about where that money sat, about how we are going to equalize the fact that I bought- You were at home?
48:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, and that, that I was at home and that I had put assets into, into our homes, and that my family had paid for all of tuition and all those things. And I just had-
49:09 Speaker 00 Really gotten comfortable and avoidant and had not really thought about what would happen if the marriage ended. And I think everyone should, no matter how happily married they are, they should look into what will happen to them if the marriage ends.
49:22 Haley Sacks? Well, we say that a prenup is like health insurance. It's like you don't get it being like, yeah, let me get sick. I really want to get sick. You got it in case you get sick. And like for that little glimpse of moment, you think about, okay, what would happen if I did get sick and you make sure that you're protected.
49:37 Speaker 00 Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
49:39 Haley Sacks? And it needs to be non emotional. Like in a way, I sort of think that people should steal what your line of like, oh, I signed something. Like if you don't feel confident enough to ask for a prenup, just say that like your grandma made you sign a legal document.
49:52 Speaker 00 I promised my grandma that I have to do it. Yes.
49:56 Haley Sacks? Sorry. Yikes.
50:00 Haley Sacks? Okay. So I think it's really interesting that with the prenup, he waited till three weeks before to get you the final draft. And then with the settlement agreement of the divorce, it was two months before the court date that finally he sent you something about, okay, like we can settle. Do you think that was a strategy? Like, why do you think that he was always like playing it so fast and loose and last minute?
50:26 Speaker 00 Yes, I think it was actually weeks in both cases. So like weeks, yeah, weeks. He requested the change of the prenup weeks before we were married and said that he was willing to settle weeks before, probably just two weeks before we had our court date.
50:44 Haley Sacks? Oh, my two weeks is so different than two months. Sorry.
50:46 Speaker 00 So I think it does put you in a position where you are more likely to cave. So I can't read his mind, but it definitely, in both cases, put me at a disadvantage to have it so time compressed. So perhaps, I mean,
51:08 Speaker 00 People in business have all sorts of negotiating strategies and that might have been one.
51:12 Haley Sacks? Yeah, you took away your leverage.
51:14 Speaker 00 Took away my leverage, which is why I was really proud of how I handled the settlement discussions and the divorce because I just stayed calm.
51:23 Haley Sacks? Yeah, you were so unemotional. It was amazing.
51:25 Speaker 00 I really knew what was important to me and what I could give up and I just stayed really focused on that and not, and was very careful not to inflame him.
51:34 Haley Sacks? Do you think though, if you had asked him something while you were in the marriage about this stuff, he would have responded well? Like, I feel like it would have, that would have just led to more mayhem. Like, that could have even led to divorce in that moment because he was so financially, like.
51:48 Speaker 00 Protective. I don't, I could have lived in that victim place. Okay, he's, he's been self-protective. He has not been looking out for me. I've ended up in this place. I could have ended up just in that angry place. But what switched it for me was really looking at my own decisions and not in a like, I'm to blame for this, I'm to blame for this divorce, but in what decisions did I make over 20 years, both about finances, about the prenup, about career, about his career, that put me in this place that where I am right now in 2020. Like, what, what did I decide that put me here? And when I did that, it kind of unlocked me, right? It just kind of switched
52:32 Speaker 00 the whole conversation in my head from him to me. And I think it's really important to like, take responsibility for your own decisions. And, and that allowed me to really look forward again and to say, what do I, where do I need to get in this divorce to be okay? And where do I, what do I want my life to look like going forward? And I started to have this glimpse of myself, not as a sad, discarded wife, but as like a matriarch of her family. I love that. Who's like, fully in charge, you know, and is going to welcome grandchildren and is going
53:17 Speaker 00 to be like.
53:18 Haley Sacks? Sexy older, rich woman with a, with a boyfriend.
53:21 Speaker 00 Yes, exactly. Chic French divorcee, as my sister-in-law said.
53:24 Haley Sacks? We love it.
53:25 Speaker 00 And once I did that, and I knew, I knew pretty early on that I wanted to return to my maiden name. That felt really important to me. And then I could just kind of see, I could see where I needed to get in the divorce to the point where I, when he finally kind of said he was willing to settle, I knew, I had a wonderful lawyer, but I had to kind of navigate to get there. And once I got there, I knew that I wanted to be completely financially separate from him. I think some, in some divorces, women stayed tied to the ex because they paid for kids. And I didn't want that. I was like, send me a check for child support, but I, otherwise,
54:09 Speaker 00 we are completely separate. And then I had to start the process of rebuilding, which is really challenging and a headache to like refinance your mortgage, to change the deeds, to change your social security, to like all those, all those things that you have to do, especially when you change your name. But
54:31 Haley Sacks? So busy.
54:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's really, really hard. But I found that like each time I accomplished something, each time like something arrived in the mail, like my new driver's license with my name on it, I felt like just this surge of energy because it was like autonomy. And that was so exciting, you know, to be in charge.
54:51 Haley Sacks? And you had never really been in charge. Like it was almost like before you got married, you were just looking for someone to be in charge of you.
54:57 Speaker 00 Yes, I had a very brief period of not being like a daughter and, and earning my own salary and paying my own rent to being a wife, you know, and so that I, I'm finally that person now, you know?
55:13 Haley Sacks? So cool. Yeah. I mean, you talked a little bit about like what disentangling financially from your ex-husband entailed, but did you have to tighten the belt? Like, were, like, what were some of like the sacrifices that you had to make when you're going through the divorce financially?
55:26 Speaker 00 I would say I had to really budget a little bit more. But the truth is that he was very tight with money.
55:35 Haley Sacks? So it's not like we're used to being like so.
55:36 Speaker 00 No, he was not like buying jewelry for me. He was not, we were not First class, we were not. So it was a pretty And then you saw the numbers of his accounts and you were like, are you you didn't have any jewelry? Are you kidding? So it was Not one first class ticket? It was a very nice life, but it was not like this extravagant life. The extravagant life I thought was coming, right? Like he was about to make partner at a hedge fund where the money would be enormous. And I never, I had to give up that fantasy of that life. That life was not coming for me and will not be coming for me. But I was able, yes, this life is definitely better.
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57:23 Haley Sacks? Could you walk us through what happened exactly with the divorce findings?
57:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, so the prenup was enforced. We were set for trial in October of 21. And that would have decided ownership of the house. And it would have decided ownership of the apartment and it would have decided child support. He decided, like, within days before the trial, that he was willing to settle, but only on his terms and without our lawyers involved. So we had an email exchange. Very, you know, I had to be very careful.
57:59 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
57:59 Speaker 00 And what I said and didn't say, and, and making sure that he felt that I was agreeing to his terms. But I kept my eye on the prize, which was keeping my homes.
58:08 Haley Sacks? Yes.
58:09 Speaker 00 And having enough child support to be able to support my kids.
58:13 Haley Sacks? People need to plan with the end in mind, because this is like, it's so, I know so many women who are in similar situations where it's like, they've had kids with guys that they didn't have good legal agreements with, or like, just any of this, and they don't think it through, and then they're in the situations, and it is so hard.
58:28 Speaker 00 To get there.
58:29 Haley Sacks? Oh, my gosh.
58:29 Speaker 00 And I'd given up the fantasy of having any settlement from him.
58:33 Haley Sacks? Yeah, you were like-
58:34 Speaker 00 He was not, he was not going to give me any of his money. So I just kept my eye on those prizes, and we ended up there, and we signed an agreement 45 minutes before trial. And I made a decision right in that moment, as I signed, that I was just not going to live in this divorce anymore, which comes as a surprise, because I did write a book, and I'm talking to you about it now.
58:56 Haley Sacks? Yeah, but that's not what the book's about.
58:58 Speaker 00 Really don't, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what I didn't get, or what was lost financially. I, I really just focus on what I have now, and all of those things. And the writing came in soon afterwards, because I think that in divorces like this, a lot of different narratives float around about what happened, and I just wanted to write down the truth of it. And then I had wanted to be a writer when I was in high school, and I had an older classmate in college tell me I couldn't write, and I stopped writing for 30 years, became a lawyer instead. It's all it takes, like, some guy who forgot about it 10 seconds later. I changed the course of my life.
59:37 Haley Sacks? You really got it. Okay, I guess I'll just-
59:39 Speaker 00 I guess I'll just stop. And so I got interested in the art of it again and I and like how to build suspense and all those things. And I submitted it to the slush email at Modern Love, which is the Times column that's been around for a long time, thinking nothing would come of it. But nine months later, they picked it to run it. We went back and forth in editing. They asked me to get my husband's, my then ex-husband's reaction to the piece, which was shocking to me. He ended up approving it, which shocked me even more. It ran in
1:00:17 Speaker 00 July of 2023. And I thought that was like this wonderful finish line. I was a published writer. And then I didn't imagine anything after that. And then two editors contacted me and said, this needs to be a book. You need a literary agent. And a friend said, well, you're not going to write a book. And I thought, actually, I am going to write a book. I have much more to say. Yes. And so I got an agent and then we worked on a proposal and had a bidding war for the book and sold the book and started writing it. You were at that point, a no name writer. How did it become a bidding war? And what did the book deal look like?
1:01:01 Speaker 00 Well, the proposal that we prepared was both like the Modern Love text. And then I had written a few other things about my father dying, about the Ospreys. And we all we kind of combined it into like about 40 pages, which is what book proposals often are, if you haven't written the entire manuscript. And then my agent went out to a number of different editors at different publishing houses. And they all submit bids and then we we.
1:01:32 Speaker 00 Decided on the best combination of bid and editor.
1:01:36 Haley Sacks? Editor is so important.
1:01:37 Speaker 00 So then I signed a contract and I had a deadline and I was given an advance and I'm a real nerd. And once I was given, you get quarter on signing, quarter on turning in your first draft, and then a quarter on hardcover and a quarter on paperback. So but once I had money in my account, I just thought I have got to execute on this. So I really approached it as a full-time job plus. I was writing like seven hours a day.
1:02:04 Haley Sacks? And I'm going to ask you a question that you might make you cringe, but I want to know how much the how much the book deal was worth because it is now I want to understand the finances of what happens when you like completely out earn your book deal. Do you know what I'm sure like it's like so crazy.
1:02:19 Speaker 00 So I probably can't give the amount, but it was definitely high six figures. And yes, you do not get a you get in the contract, you're entitled to a percentage of royalties, but you have to earn out, which means that you have to sell enough books so that the publisher recoups what they have paid you, plus their expenses.
1:02:43 Haley Sacks? Yes.
1:02:44 Speaker 00 So it is very rare for an author to earn out and to start earning royalties. But my my hope is because it's done so well and will hopefully continue to do well that I may.
1:02:56 Haley Sacks? Oh, I think it will for sure.
1:02:57 Speaker 00 Earning royalties. Yeah.
1:02:58 Haley Sacks? A hundred percent.
1:03:01 Haley Sacks? Now I'm seeing every day in the New York Post that it's like a bidding war again for the movie rights. Like, what does that look like? Is that you own the story completely? So like the publisher doesn't get a piece of that? Like, what's the what are the economics of turning a book into a movie? How involved are you going to be in the movie?
1:03:18 Speaker 00 I actually don't know how it works, like with the publisher's rights and my rights and all. We have not gotten that far, but I do have film agents and there has been a lot of interest in to sell the film rights, you you're paid an option and that option usually is a year to 18 months to and then if they don't get it made within that period of time, they may pay you again for an option extension, which they've also agreed to that price. And then if the film is greenlit and going to be made, then you're paid for the rights and that's all agreed to upfront, how much that will be.
1:03:57 Speaker 00 And I'm learning right now, like what that range is, that there, there has been talk of a bidding war, that that bidding war has not yet happened, but there is a lot of interest and I'm kind of figuring out, because it's like yet another, you know, it's another stage, it's another thing, you know, my kids will have to be comfortable with it. And what are the economics? Because the economics have to be good enough for me to take this step.
1:04:23 Haley Sacks? Well, first of all, what would good economics mean to you in this situation? Like, what would be like your dream number for it?
1:04:29 Speaker 00 For selling the rights, I would definitely want like a seven figure.
1:04:33 Haley Sacks? Of course. Yeah. Like, are we talking like four mil or we want?
1:04:36 Speaker 00 No, I don't think I would get that.
1:04:38 Haley Sacks? One mil? Like, what? I don't know what like the, what the baseline is.
1:04:41 Speaker 00 I actually don't know either. You would have to ask my film agents. Like, we're literally not at that stage yet. So I, I don't have any offer that would give me a sense of that yet.
1:04:50 Haley Sacks? It should be like, it has to be seven figures. I also could see it as a mini series. Like, I sort of want more than just a movie. Like, I want to like be with the character for longer.
1:04:59 Speaker 00 Most people see it as a film because it's just sort of this one arc. And if it was series, you'd have to add a lot more, I think, to have like cliffhangers in every episode. Maybe there'd, and I would like to, I don't want to write it. I don't want to spend the next years of my life writing this story. And there are a lot of great screenwriters out there, but I would love to stay involved and be a part of scripts because there are ways that it could change that would be really uncomfortable for me. And then there are ways that it could change that would actually create some distance that would be helpful, right? Like, maybe one kid instead of three kids, or, you know, something like that. So it's interesting. I never, when I wrote Modern Love, I didn't
1:05:42 Speaker 00 imagine the book. And when I wrote the book, I did not imagine this stage of it. So it's really interesting. It's a real adventure for me.
1:05:49 Haley Sacks? And now you're gonna like have to start imagining the Oscars.
1:05:51 Speaker 00 Right, exactly. Like, what are we gonna wear?
1:05:54 Haley Sacks? But what has it meant for you to now have this new income stream? Like, that must feel so exciting.
1:06:01 Speaker 00 It's really, really exciting. And when Modern Love came out, they sent, The Times sent me a check for $500, and I have it framed and on my wall because it's the first money I've earned in a very, very long time. And it felt great. And earning money on the book, on my like, blood, sweat and tears in writing this, feels amazing. And the fact that I could earn more and also have a life as a writer with income is the most exciting thing I can imagine. I'm 56 years old. I'll turn 57 in May. And I love that my life is expanding.
1:06:39 Haley Sacks? So much so.
1:06:40 Speaker 00 And not contracting. You know, I think you can go one of two ways as you get into later middle age. And I just love that I'm gonna have meaningful work and income during these years of my life.
1:06:52 Haley Sacks? I wanted to talk a little bit about your family, because of your children specifically, because some of the criticism, there's not much, but wielded against you, like, is sort of in protection of your children. And so I'd love to give you the chance to respond to that critique and sort of talk a little bit about how you saw your children's place in the telling of the story and, you know, that breaking up the cycle.
1:07:16 Speaker 00 And I understand that criticism a lot. And it definitely came up around Modern Love. And it's the thing that affects me the most, that I am doing something that is bad for my kids, that it is bad for children to speak so openly about a story about their father. So I wrestle with that every day. But as we spoke about the generational legacy in my family and his family, his father left, my understanding is his father left the family for a period of time and came back. And it was never spoken about in my family. There was a lot of male infidelity, again, never spoken about. And I think when you don't talk about these things,
1:07:57 Speaker 00 when you're not open about them, they get repeated across generations. They get like stored in our bones and our DNA. And I really think the only way to stop that, to stop that pattern is to be, to talk about it.
1:08:10 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
1:08:11 Speaker 00 But all of that said, I know it's, it's a lot to have a book come out and it's a lot for kids and time will tell whether it's helpful for them. I've had a lot of adults, adults write me about their experience being kids in the kind of situation that happened to me. And obviously, I don't hear from anyone, but the, these letters have been so poignant because they say how, how much it helps them to read what I've written and how much it would have helped them if their parents had been open about or tried to explain what had actually happened. Because there's always so much mystery or like, wait, did my dad leave?
1:08:54 Haley Sacks? I know.
1:08:55 Speaker 00 You know, and that mystery, I think, can be not so great for kids. But we'll see. I know, I know it'll, it will, you know, it may take decades to, to decide whether this was a good thing to do or not.
1:09:11 Haley Sacks? I think what's interesting, too, is there is a consensus among readers and myself and my friends I've talked about the book with, that you could have been so much harsher on your ex in the writing of the book. Like, you were really like, not that bad to him. Like, what made you decide to take the approach you did? Because some people write a memoir and they are burning that.
1:09:30 Speaker 00 Yes.
1:09:31 Haley Sacks? It's like Taylor Swift vibes, like.
1:09:32 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:09:33 Haley Sacks? Freaking like going after them.
1:09:36 Speaker 00 Both in Modern Love and in the book, it felt like. The equilibrium was so hard to achieve and it can tip so easily into building a case against your ex. And so I just kept taking things out. I was just like, okay, I'm going to take out that detail, even though it's true, I'm going to take out that detail.
1:09:56 Haley Sacks? Like wherever it was a judgment you took it out.
1:09:57 Speaker 00 Yes, or just like one more detail. Oh, he used to do this and like whatever.
1:10:01 Haley Sacks? It's hard to not want to just like freaking go for it.
1:10:04 Speaker 00 And but I find that there were some great divorce memoirs out there, but some of them really are building that case and they become, I think people have a right to be angry and there's there's a place for anger.
1:10:17 Haley Sacks? It's lots of.
1:10:18 Speaker 00 It becomes like kind of this, you become an unreliable narrator, I think, when you tip too far into that. And I wanted mine to be very even handed, fair, and so much so that you kind of absorb a lot of the messages in it without really realizing it. Do you know what I mean? It's like more digestible. And my hope is that it will have more of an impact because it's not sort of this screeching diatribe against what happened to me.
1:10:54 Haley Sacks? Well, you are truly like have shifted so much of the narrative around money. And I think that the work that you did with this book is going to like, you told me before that it's like already shifting the culture of private schools in New York, that there's going to be financial curriculums. And you've done so much for the cause of increasing financial literacy, increasing the talk about prenups and equity in marriage and how to deal with generational wealth and generational money trauma. And just like, girl, you really did something.
1:11:27 Speaker 00 Thank you.
1:11:28 Haley Sacks? And not only that, you've like really gotten yourself back on your feet. And I think that is the most epic part of the whole story because you can't keep a good woman down.
1:11:39 Speaker 00 No.
1:11:39 Haley Sacks? You can try, but you'll never succeed. We'll come back stronger. So thank you for being here, Bob.
1:11:45 Speaker 00 Thank you so much.
1:11:46 Haley Sacks? And I hope I got invited to your movie career.
1:11:48 Speaker 00 Absolutely.
1:11:48 Haley Sacks? Premiere, sorry.
1:11:49 Speaker 00 Absolutely.
1:11:50 Haley Sacks? Gotta play you. We can't wait.
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