The Financial Realities You Need to Understand If You Are Married. Lessons from Belle Burden’s Divorce Memoir. By Dish Stanley

If Belle Burden’s Memoir Taught Us Anything, It’s That Both Partners in a Marriage Need to Understand Their Financial Picture. So I Talked to Deirdre Prescott, Founder of Sandy Cove Advisors, Who Has Advised Hundreds of Married Couples, As Well as Over 50 Women Going Through Divorce.

To go straight to A Financial Checklist for Couples prepared by Sandy Cove’s Founder Deirdre Prescott, go here.

+++

“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 a professional and try to understand what is going on in your marriage.” — Belle Burden

(from her interview with Mrs. Dow Jones on the Financial Tea podcast, March 19, 2026)

That’s Belle Burden’s advice to married women two months ago, in March 2026, almost exactly six years to the day after her husband James suddenly left her and their three kids without explanation. Over the two decades they were married she asked no questions at all about their financial picture. Nor did she in the days leading up to their wedding, when James surprised her with an aggressively one-sided rider to their prenup that she signed against the advice of her lawyer. Instead of asking, Belle did the opposite, she acquiesced to James on all major (and minor) financial matters, including signing tax returns that she didn’t read. She also gave him tight control over her spending even though, as a Vanderbilt heir, she brought millions from her inheritance into the marriage. (He brought next to nothing.)

She didn’t ask any question, she admitted in a March episode of the Financial Tea podcast, because “there was something romantic almost about handing [all financial matters] over to him … and he said ‘I’m going to take care of you …’”

"I was," Belle admitted, “willfully naive."

While the size of the estate she and her husband ultimately went to court over — and the finer details of their prenuptial agreement — may differ greatly from yours or mine, the underlying sentiment is far more universal. Many people equate financial dependence with romance: the idea that being “taken care of” financially is a sign of love, while remaining intentionally uninvolved in the family’s financial life feels easier, less stressful, or even comforting.

"Although this wouldn’t be the case for the married couples we advise, because we believe it’s important to include both spouses in all the important matters and meetings, even where the couple has designated one spouse as the primary point person,” says Deirdre Prescott, Founder of Sandy Cove Advisors, “we receive many referrals to represent women on the financial aspects of divorce, advising on the impact to them of dividing the various assets. Among those, we do see a lot of ‘Belle Burden’s,’ women who have minimal to no understanding of their financial realities."

Strangers became an immediate bestseller when it was published in January of this year, with much of the immediate attention focused on the memoir’s central theme: did she ever really know her mild-mannered, seemingly devoted husband of 20 years, or was he a stranger all along? It is a deeply resonant story of the sudden dissolution of what appeared to be a perfect marriage and family.

But for many readers, and all those who work as financial or legal advisors on family matters, the real question was why Belle, a corporate attorney at a top Wall Street firm, would have agreed to James’s aggressive rider to their prenup over her attorney’s objections? And the real suspense was over how Belle and her ex’s assets would ultimately get split. Would the judge enforce their one-sided prenup?

Belle and James' Financial Story

Belle and James had met in their twenties as corporate attorneys at one of Manhattan’s most prestigious law firms. She brought considerable wealth into their marriage from her two trust funds, much of which was spent in the first decade of their marriage to buy their two multi-million dollar homes in Manhattan and Martha’s Vineyard. Although she paid for them both in full using her inheritance, she put the titles in both their names as joint owners, a 50/50 ownership split. Over the course of the marriage, she also paid a strict 50% of the family’s ongoing living expenses.

James, on the other hand, brought no significant assets into the marriage, but became rich during it, eventually becoming a partner in a hedge fund. During their marriage his earnings were never discussed and she had no idea how much he made. Under the prenup, he got to keep everything he earned (after splitting their shared expenses).

To be clear, if Belle had had a career, their prenup provided that she would have been allowed to keep all of what she earned during the marriage as well, but the writing was on the wall early on: he was going to have the “big career,” she was going to be the caretaker. Shortly after their wedding she left the prestigious law firm for a more flexible role at her brother’s company, then once they had kids, she eventually gave up paid work altogether.

His growing career became what Burden referred to in The Financial Tea podcast as the “family enterprise.” The family’s life was structured around it; his work came first, before teacher-parent conferences and before time with the family (he worked nights and weekends). Burden’s work was raising the three kids and caring for almost every aspect of their family and personal life.

In her memoir, Belle says that a common refrain from James about the kids was “I don’t do bath, bed or homework.”

Between buying the homes (and giving James half of them) and paying her share of living expenses, Belle’s wealth dwindled over the course of their marriage. Because James was entitled to keep all of his earnings even though she supported his career as the primary homemaker, his wealth soared during their marriage.

If this sounds like a case of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine” that’s because it is.

Grossly unfair, but she agreed to it in her prenup, so it seemed likely that it would be held up in court.

How was it that she, a sophisticated corporate attorney, agreed to such a disadvantageous arrangement? Two months before their wedding her attorney had sent James a draft prenuptial agreement, the same one that her brother and his fiance had signed before their wedding. James had waited until a few weeks before the wedding to respond to it. Meaning, until after the wedding invitations had been sent out, when calling the wedding off would be the most traumatic and embarrassing. Demonstrating his skills as an attorney, he had presented her with his egregiously self-serving rider when he had the most leverage.

After James left her, as she and James’s respective financial realities were becoming clear, Belle was shocked to learn exactly how wealthy her husband had become as a result of his “big career,” the one she nurtured. And she became increasingly anxious over her own finances.

And I know, I know, one is tempted to have a "poor little rich girl" reaction to Belle’s financial drama. One of my closest girlfriends, a self-made success, called me the moment she finished the memoir. “I’m struggling so hard right now to find sympathy for her and her financial predicament. In ignoring her lawyer on the prenup, she acted exactly like a spoiled person does, someone who had the privileged life that would lead her to assume that she would always be taken care of. She didn’t have to look out for herself. It wasn’t stupidity, she is not a stupid woman. It was the culmination of a lifetime of wealth falling into her lap.”

A career woman myself, who put myself through both law and business schools, to be honest, I could relate to my friend’s reaction. We can be jealous of her wealth and privilege, but is it entirely fair to be so judgmental of her? For one thing, she wasn’t responsible for the bubble she was born into or the lessons that were passed down to her. Ultimately, when the shit hit the fan after her marriage’s dissolution, she owned up to a lot of the negative consequences of her legacy, including her own financial negligence.

And for another thing, a lot of us are guilty of the same acquiescence over financial matters. We let our husbands manage the big financial picture while we take care of other (maybe even all) the personal household matters.

I asked Deirdre Prescott how often she sees this and she said "It’s very common. In my work advising women going through a divorce I would say 30 to 40%. We represent many happily married couples, of course, and regardless of which partner is taking the lead on portfolio matters we always include the other partner in meetings."

There is no denying that Belle did us all the great favor of owning up to her own failures in this area in a very public way, because now we’re all talking about it. That took guts, especially since she must have anticipated that her privilege might make her as much a target of derision as it did an inspiration and example of the change that’s possible.

The Financial Awakening the Rest of Us Need

It is ironic that it takes a Vanderbilt descendant with an enviable inheritance who relinquished control over finances during her marriage to teach the rest of us that we need a financial reawakening in our own marriages.

"These financial lessons apply to all married women,” says Deirdre, “in order to understand what your financial realities are in the event of a divorce or the death or incapacitation of your spouse. Because the probability that you will experience one of those two and end up navigating a financial obstacle course is very high."

I saw how true this was myself after my father died this fall, as I sat down with my mother to begin to work through the bank accounts and portfolio that my father had managed in order to get a handle on how she was set up going forward. Financial obstacle course, for sure. We never found the password he used for his “subscribe and save” purchases on Amazon and five months later, my mother’s garage is overrun with the weekly boxes of paper towels, toilet paper and Starbucks’ Italian Roast he ordered. “Gifts from above,” my sister calls them.

Deirdre’s Lessons Are On Point: We can’t find the password to my late father’s Amazon account, and the “subscribe and save” deliveries of toilet paper, paper towels and Starbucks coffee keep piling up. We just donated a bunch to clear out the garage and we still have these left.

Most importantly, says Deirdre, "if you’ve been uninvolved in your financial life, start now. Many women discover they are capable of learning quickly, gaining confidence, and even enjoying the process, or at the very least, finding comfort in avoiding unwelcome surprises down the road."

"One helpful way to think about this is that it is not just for you, staying informed and understanding your financial realities is not just taking care of yourself, it is taking care of your children and grandchildren," says Deirdre.

A Financial Checklist for Couples

“Even in strong marriages, it’s important for both partners to understand their financial picture. Often couples have a divide-and-conquer approach, with one spouse handling the bills and the other handling the investments. While that might make sense, both partners need to understand the full picture, stay involved in all big financial decision-making and have rights and access to all advisors, accounts, statements and tax returns and accountants,” says Deirdre.

Here’s what Deirdre Prescott says both partners need to know, do and be involved in:

1. Know Your Full Financial Picture

Know where all accounts are held: bank, brokerage, retirement accounts, life insurance and credit cards.
Know your monthly and annual spendings (“burn rate”) and how it compares to your income and overall wealth.
Attend annual investment meetings and understand your portfolio strategy. Make sure your advisor respects your questions, especially if you're not the "lead" partner.
Review your tax return before signing. Ask your preparer: "Have we taken any aggressive positions?" "What changed from last year?"
Confirm beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance pass outside of a will, so confirm the named beneficiaries are current and correct.
Get login credentials for all joint and other financial accounts and check them regularly. Cross-reference with your tax return to confirm you know about every account.
Keep a bank account or credit card in your name alone so you have liquidity when you need it and individual credit, essential whether you face divorce or widowhood.
If your spouse is the primary earner, ask about deferred compensation. Executives can defer significant income to future years.
Both spouses should pull their Social Security Statement (www.ssa.gov), annual FICO report and review each other's benefits, scores, inputs, and disclosures.
If family assets are held in trust and you weren't involved in setting them up, review them with an attorney: what's held where, how it's titled, how it passes.
If you signed a prenup, consider reviewing it annually, especially if you signed it decades ago (or if, when you did, you ignored your attorney’s advice).

2. Maintain Access to Important Documents

At least annually, gather and save copies of tax returns, statements, retirement accounts, mortgage documents, and insurance policies.
Store copies securely in a personal cloud account or private location and be mindful of shared devices and logins.
Know the login to spouse’s computer and phone, with dual authentication becoming more the norm.
Don't overlook group/company life insurance or deferred compensation statements, typically issued quarterly or annually.
Keep copies of all deeds and confirm your name appears where it should.
Know where your wills, healthcare proxies, and powers of attorney are kept, and make sure yours are up to date. Review your trust and estate plan at least every five years.

3. Ask Yourself This Question: What Would Happen If …”

As you go through the above, ask your advisors and yourself this question: what would happen if my spouse got in a car crash and was incapacitated or died tomorrow (god forbid)? Where is my cash, how do I make sure all important bills are paid, how much credit do I have on my credit card(s)?

In fact, that could be the best way to approach your partner about getting involved if you haven’t been over the course of your marriage. Suggest that you don’t want to have any financial shocks if something catastrophic were to happen to your spouse. “What can often precipitate one partner gaining an interest in their own marital financial realities is that the spouse of a close friend, sibling or a parent dies. They witness firsthand the double-whammy a loved one is going through when there is a traumatic scramble to pay bills or get on top of a financial emergency while dealing with the loss of a spouse. It’s awful, but it does serve as a head’s up.”

What you might not want to say? That your involvement in your joint financial affairs was precipitated by reading Belle Burden’s divorce memoir. That could trigger some defensiveness, or worse. Even though that seems to be the reason a lot of women are for the first time getting involved, and we are extremely grateful to Belle for that.

To go directly to Sandy Cove’s Financial Checklist for Couples go here.

In Part 2, we will share a checklist from Sandy Cove Advisors for those going through or anticipating divorce.

Deirdre Prescott, Founder of Sandy Cove Advisors, can be reached at dprescott@sandycoveadvisors.com or 617-622-1502

I realized while discussing Strangers with friends, as well as going through financial matters with my own mother, that we all have stories involving marriage and finances. I’d love to share yours. Send me an email at Dish@PrimeCrush.com or use the link below.

Share Your Marriage Financial Stories Here