Mistress Manifesto: FLOBELLE "BELLE" FAIRBANKS BURDEN : EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT HER DIVORCE MEMOIR TITLED "STRANGERS"

Thursday, October 29, 2026

FLOBELLE "BELLE" FAIRBANKS BURDEN : EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT HER DIVORCE MEMOIR TITLED "STRANGERS"

Everyone is talking about this memoir and it's controversial. Some commentators have the idea that it's outrageous that Belle, a woman who came from "old money" - American aristocracy out of New York City - dare reveal her pain. One commentator - a woman - said in so many words, how dare she feel bad about herself because she went through a divorce, Belle isn't wondering if she's going to have to sell the house and move into a small apartment or what sort of job she's going to have to work to support her children... She was also accused of writing for the purpose of revenge, rather than a need to express herself or process grief.

I remember the day I met a woman who was much richer than me. As we spoke she said, "Everyone has pain, including rich people." I agreed. I think how rare it is for a woman with her privileged background to reveal her truth. So very many people from her social-cultural group - men and women - friends and not so - went against her. Well educated, a lawyer who presently works pro bono on juvenile immigration cases (citizenship), a loving and responsible mother and wife, and an heiress with two substantial trust funds that allowed her to purchase two residents for her family - one in New York City - one on Martha's Vineyard island, Belle had a deep desire to remain married and have an intact marriage. She had witnessed her mother and grandmother's relationships with men. Both had infidelity in their relationships and protected the men. She wanted more and better.

Belle is eloquent and there are passages in the book that are beautiful as well as heart-rendering. She reveals the shock she felt and the many emotional and psychological - and eventually financial and social - adjustments she had to make in order to get through a difficult time. She was deeply in love with her husband when he seemed to change overnight.

A telephone message revealed that her husband was having an affair. He said it was brief, he said it was nothing, he said Belle - his wife and the mother of their three children - was his priority. But then he was out the door and didn't even want shared custody. On this, I would say that a man wanting freedom from fatherhood seems to be the worst of it.

Belle did not know if the woman she called her husband's "mistress" was or is still in his life. I simply do not think that a woman is a mistress because she had a brief affair with a man who is legally married at the time. She also does not understand what happened that her husband changed seemingly so drastically.

Although the husband of the woman Belle's husband had an extramarital relationship with might have well intended, I don't think he should have done that. Rather, I think

As for wives staying with husbands who have extramarital relationships - and actual mistresses - every individual has to decide that for themselves. I can say that many do. There are all sorts of agreements that people come to or negotiate in their relationships.

And as for her husband's only explanation being that something switched off in him, believe it or not, that does happen. Perhaps it was actually happening slowly but the reckoning of it may be sudden.

As my reader's know, I love to excerpt, but in this case, I will do only one.

Excerpt page 105: (Belle wants to know more about The Other Woman. One of her daughters was given a name that doesn't match the name she was told, though he explains that it is the same woman.)

... "It was nit the alliterative one I knew, the name that had tormented me since he left, the one I googled multiple times a day, staring at her face on the screen, trying to understand why he had chosen her over me. In addition to having a profile on LinkedIn, she had posted three photos on Facebook - a vacation photo on a boat (her dark hair pushed back with sunglasses), a photograph of a tropical drink (served in a coconut and decorated with an orchid) and her profile photo (another vacation shot, this one at a zoon.) She was fifteen years younger than me, but not a younger version of me. We looked like the opposite of each other, in height, coloring, style. I thought, he wants something different.

...

I had not reached out to the woman or her husband since the night of the voicemail and the ambulance. Her husband didn't text me or call me again either. An older friend, a lawyer, advised me against any contact. He said, "It will become messy very quickly, and it will only lead to more misery. It could also, possible, make you look bad in front of a judge when you divorce." His advice felt like a clear, defined path, one that felt dignified... "