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Belle Burden: Betrayal, divorce, rebuilding financial independence | You’re Gonna Want to Hear This

Marie Claire Australia

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Belle Burden’s story is one of those stories you cannot stop thinking about.

In this episode of You’re Gonna Want to Hear This, marie claire editor Georgie McCourt sits down with the author of Strangers to talk about betrayal, infidelity, divorce, heartbreak, motherhood, money, and what it takes to rebuild your life when the person you trusted most becomes someone you no longer recognise.

Belle opens up about the shocking phone call that revealed her husband was having an affair, the moment he walked out during lockdown, and the brutal emotional fallout that followed. She speaks candidly about wife abandonment, co-parenting, custody, financial blind spots inside marriage, and the long process of shifting the focus away from him and back onto herself.

This is a conversation about heartbreak, but it is also about strength, self-belief, financial independence, identity, and what can emerge when a life you thought was fixed suddenly falls apart.

In this episode:
• the phone call that changed everything
• betrayal, infidelity and the shock of husband abandonment
• what it means when the person you love becomes a stranger
• motherhood, divorce and explaining impossible things to children
• financial independence and the hard lessons Belle learned
• heartbreak, shame and the slow work of rebuilding
• why time, self-belief and perspective matter after divorce

If you’ve ever had to start again, this conversation will stay with you.

Subscribe, like, comment and - most of all - share with someone who needs to hear it.

#BelleBurden #Strangers #Divorce #Heartbreak #Infidelity #FinancialIndependence #WomensStories #MarieClaire #YoureGonnaWantToHearThis #StartingOver

Chapters

00:00 The phone call that changed everything
01:00 Introducing Belle Burden and Strangers
03:35 The night Belle learned her husband was having an affair
05:10 The morning he left and became a stranger
06:25 The first days of heartbreak and shock
08:00 The other woman, obsession and what not to do
09:10 Wife abandonment and men who suddenly walk away
10:45 Do you ever really know someone?
12:20 Intimacy, love and what changed
14:20 Telling the children
17:45 Custody, rejection and co-parenting after abandonment
18:45 Gray rocking, boundaries and staying calm
20:10 Why anger was not the dominant emotion
22:10 Turning the spotlight back on herself
22:50 The pain of telling the children
27:50 Financial blind spots inside marriage
31:10 Why women need financial literacy
34:05 The life Belle has now and who she has become
35:50 Single motherhood, peace and building a new family life
36:55 Seeing her ex now and how time changes everything
39:00 Film rights, exposure and what happens next
40:00 Belle’s message to women navigating heartbreak

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Who’s on your celebrity fantasy dinner party list? marie claire have got access to the biggest celebrities and fascinating favourite people you love. With unique pairings, the type of conversations where fun and frankness is always in style. Trust us…you’re gonna want to hear this!

In this episode, marie claire editor Georgie McCourt sits down with writer and author Belle Burden for a conversation about love, loss - and what happens when your life changes overnight.

20 Comments

@marieclaireau Creator 5 months ago Pinned

What helps most after heartbreak: time, friends, money clarity, therapy, or rebuilding your sense of self?

@Empowering-Life-Lessons 4 months ago

Something that is really striking is that her husband was squirrelling away money only in his own name. And that he pushed for a pre-up that stated she would get nothing unless her name was on it along with his. And he knowingly only put all the funds in his name, yet was happy to allow her to put his name on both properties she provided all the funds for. He is simply a con man and ruthless and hopefully one day she will see him for he really is. And what kind of father does this to his kids mother. He is a sneaky little jerk. This guy is not a good person and no other woman is going to want to be with him with this information.

@broetchenahoi6524 5 months ago (edited)

After 20 years of marriage and three kids AND having had the family focus on HIS career through which he grew high multi-million figure wealth - and then he steps away without even an explanation and she gets NOTHING?? That's crazy. At the same time I'm thrilled for the positive personal transformation Belle Burden ultimately experienced, the massive success of her book and hope she gets a monster offer for the movie. You GO, Belle! You deserve ALL the goodness the universe has to offer. (And the ex's karma will forever be in the toilet).

@nualanicghearailt8011 5 months ago (edited)

Having listened to a number of interviews with Belle, the sense I get about her husband is that he rarely had to compromise himself or his life when it came to running their family life / household. I am not blaming her at all, however it sounds like a lot was done to facilitate him and his career. I get the impression that the ‚flexibility‘ or ‚adjustment‘ muscles were quite undeveloped in him and as such he was able to be quite self-focused or self-centred about his wants and needs. That coupled then with an uncanny ability to disconnect or disassociate. He probably continued ‚suiting himself‘ in walking out the door and pursuing a new life for himself without thinking or seemingly caring about the devastation he left behind. So emotionally tough for Belle and her kids to have to go through. She sounds like she might be an empath which makes the whole experience so tough. Wonderful she could build a fresh life for herself.

@sallydixon8639 5 months ago

Dear Belle! I am now 84 and hope you see this message!🌷
The future is yours Belle!
But I would advise, as I went through a very similar divorce as you did with a 25 year marriage and three children, please please take your time!
Your children need you now and I took 5 years 46-51) to remarry to a wonderful strong man 23 year older ! Very smart, wise, strong and person that I respected. My sons also respected him and he was a very important person guide for them ! They are in their 50’ now and tell me that he helped guide them in those troubled confusing years as they related and didn’t relate to their father!
So just go slow with any relationships! You have plenty of time for knowing yourself and your choices right now are very important!
❤️🌷❤️🌷❤️

@MariaDelgado-e4b 5 months ago (edited)

There must have been other affairs way before the last one….my heart breaks for the kids!😢 Her composure is exemplary and the best attitude for the kids.

@africanaissues4294 5 months ago

He didn’t give his own daughter a room in his new apartment! He’s a monster

@TheSahand68 5 months ago (edited)

Something is terribly wrong with this guy who walked away from his family and refused a 50/50 custody od his children...😮😮😮. psychiatrists/psychotherapists might be needed here...😢😢😢 Luckily Belle not only recovered, but opened a new chapter in her life and is striving🎉❤❤

@JoanneCrosman 2 months ago

I am so glad Belle wrote her story and shared it. I, too, was abandoned by my husband of 38 years just prior to the Covid lockdown. We did not have a bad or hostile relationship prior to his exodus but once he made it formal with a served surprise divorce summons, war was declared and i showed him how the math is done. I had always managed the house, the finances, etc and know that was my salvation through the whole mess. I was well aware of the numbers and made them work for me. Being angry gave me power and provided me the force to pull my game together and take charge of my shattered life. Men that pull this crap are real sneaky cowards and deserve no respect by anyone.

@tamdillman 5 months ago

She made him the sandwich?!?!? Afterward, he texted what a great meeting it was?!?!?

@LadyoftheIsland137 6 months ago

A beautifully thought provoking interview, Georgie. Thank you. Emerging from a painful, yet self initiated divorce after 34 years can be glorious and celebratory & breathtakingly blessed. Women, keep the conversations going. We simply are not alone.

@JoJo8531-c8t 5 months ago

Um. Girl, he was a gaslighting sociopath from the start. Someone please get through to her. He gaslit her so much that she was basically in a cult of one with this POS as her leader. He systematically manipulated and used her to get what he wanted: money, power all under the guise of a happily married man. She helped give this sociopath legitimacy. When he appeared to suddenly shift, that is the real man behind the mask. The previous twenty years was the sham. She seriously is still in this cult with her thinking that he was struggling with anything. His only struggle was to keep his deception secret long enough to amass as much wealth and property before dropping the bomb he always intended to drop on her. He was playing the long con.

@dianebalch5369 4 months ago

You weren't "dumb". You were trusting and optimistic. There's a difference.

@soundsgood12 5 months ago

Her ex shows patterns consistent with Narcissistic Personality Disorder—notably sustaining a false persona. I experienced similar; despite sensing something was off, my focus stayed on the children. Leaving a 20-year marriage with kids points to a split between image and reality. Such individuals can maintain idealised identities—effectively a double life—to meet their needs. The harm is the illusion: attachment forms to what was presented, not what existed. When it collapses, it exposes low self-awareness, weakened self-respect, and codependent patterns that were visible and effectively exploited—though never his to fix. Her compassion was directed at a projected image, a common trap; she’s not alone. This isn’t gendered—without real self-connection and understanding of love, people seek it externally, where it remains unstable, and the cycle continues until addressed internally.

@WidowSister 5 months ago

Just thinking out loud - what relationship did he continue with your son as opposed to your daughters?

@sandidisalvo1288 5 months ago

I am so sorry for you and I truly understand I was married 52 years and 75 years old. I found at 2:00 am when I found letters after he had a stroke. I worked 50 years not a high paying job but I was thrifty. Now I devastated and all the emotions. I wished I had writing skills this is a story I want to tell so this doesn’t happen to another elder person. I wish I could talk to another woman who has gone thru this betrayal.

@sandysoul8 3 months ago (edited)

What I hope comes from this is boundaries! Saying no is so important and she didn’t ever say no to him! In all of these interviews she says she makes choices to appease and control people. She wants to control people’s emotions or responses to her boundaries so she refuses to have any.
Saying no and teaching our children to say no and have boundaries from a young age is so important! We need autonomy and agency and we don’t ever need to give that up! We can be in relationships and married and still be our own person.
We aren’t being a nice person or a better person by always complying. We are being a weak person and easily manipulated.

@RoxyTrovillion 4 months ago

She's incredible

@pinaytunay 4 months ago

almost exactly what happened to my but my story is, my husband and i are in this beautiful island for our annual vacation (he is gone most time of the year for work overseas) and comes home to me for a month vacation. we were on top of a hill with 360 degrees unobstructed view of the sea on the left and the massive ocean on the right with rolling hills infront of us. suddenly his phone rings. it is the other woman telling him why is he still not coming back to the mainland, there is going to be a lockdown....