DON’T GIVE UP CONTROL –

WHAT BELLE BURDEN’S “STRANGERS” TEACHES EVERY WOMAN ABOUT MONEY

For four decades, I’ve worked with women to help them find their financial voices – to step into rooms where decisions are made, to understand their investments and to stay actively involved in their financial planning. That mission has always been personal for me. Too often, I’ve seen the toll that financial disconnection can take when a marriage ends, or life takes an unexpected turn.  The pattern is heartbreakingly familiar: bright, capable women finding themselves overwhelmed, uncertain, and most painfully, feeling powerless.

That’s why Belle Burden’s new memoir, Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, felt less like a rarified tale of Manhattan wealth and more like a case study in what I’ve seen throughout my entire career.

Burden was a corporate lawyer who walked away from a career to raise children and support her husband’s high-flying finance path. They lived in a world of trust funds, Manhattan apartments, private schools and beach houses – like so many couples they “implicitly agreed” that he would handle the money while she handled the home. She even used her own trust funds to buy their properties while his income accumulated separately, in accounts she didn’t see, let alone knew existed.  When he had an affair and abruptly asked for a divorce after 20 years of marriage, the financial reality hit: she didn’t know his earnings, the details of their finances or what life would look like on her own.

In a recent interview, when asked what advice she would give women, Burden didn’t talk about romance or red flags or even forgiveness.  She said, “don’t give up control of your finances and never let go of your financial authority.” That single sentence distills what I’ve been saying to women for decades: love can be shared, but financial responsibility must never be surrendered.

It means knowing where your money is, how it’s working for you and how to make informed changes when life changes course. Handing over financial responsibility to a partner may feel convenient – even like an act of trust – but it can also be a quiet relinquishing of power.

Here are the core lessons from Strangers that I believe every woman – regardless of wealth- needs to hear:

• Don’t outsource understanding. Burden admits she simply trusted “life would provide” and did not track income, accounts nor investments. Understanding the numbers is not cynicism -  it’s self-respect.
• Don’t fall into the trap of a shared life but separate awareness. Her husband insisted on separate finances and meticulous tracking of her spending, even as she was using her own funds to build their shared life. A shared household doesn’t mean you should be in the dark about where money sits and whose name is on what.

Agency is the real “happily ever after.” Writing Strangers was Burden’s way of reclaiming her narrative and financial voice after years of silence.  I see the same transformation when a client learns to read her own statements, asks sharper questions, and insists on being at the table for every major decision.

From my vantage point as The Bag Lady of Bay Street®, Belle’s world of penthouses and private beaches is just window dressing.  The heart of the story is universal: when you give up financial involvement you give up power. Regardless of your net worth, the most protective step you can take is to stay actively, consciously involved in your money.

So, when I read Strangers, I felt both inspired and validated. It’s a reminder that financial independence isn’t a luxury – it’s essential self-care.  And after 40 years of helping women reclaim that sense of control, I couldn’t agree more with Belle Burden’s advice: never give it away.