1973: Strangers: A Review of the Marriage Memoir Everyone's Talking About

**Farnoosh Torabi** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:38)
You're listening to So Money with award-winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day, get a 30-minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh herself.
Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons? Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life? Welcome to So Money.

**Heather Bonaparthe** (1:05)
I think of this as the things are good trap. I think it's very easy for folks with enough financial stability to fall into a trap of, well, things are good. We can do everything we want to do. Our kids can go to the camps they want to go to.
We go on our vacations, we own our home. I mean, of course, I'm generalizing, but I think that at many income levels, people kind of say to themselves, can talk themselves into this idea of like, I'm going to not rock the boat with this. I'm not going to ask too many questions because I'm doing my thing, he's doing his thing, and things are good, or at least I believe things are good, until they're not, until they're not.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (1:45)
Welcome to So Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Torabi. It is a tale as old as time. Woman meets man, woman marries man, woman says, honey, you handle the money.
She trusts him, she builds the life, she raises the kids, she keeps everything running, and then one day, he leaves, he's gone. And so is her financial footing.
So when I first picked up Strangers, which is currently the number one New York Times bestselling memoir by Belle Burden, I'll be honest, I had a little bit of an eye roll. I thought, okay, here we go again. Another story about a woman putting the entirety of her financial life in her husband's hands falling apart. But then I read it. And like so many of my friends and peers, I could not put this book down. Yes, it's juicy. It's got Upper East Side, Martha's Vineyard, Hamptons, all of it. But underneath it all, it's something else entirely. It is a masterclass in what can go wrong when you opt out of your financial life. And not because someone hid something from you, but because you chose to not look. And that's in part what makes this story hit so hard. We're going to go deeper into all of it. And I've called in reinforcements. My friend, financial expert and attorney, Heather Bonaparthe is here. She's the co-author of the book Money Together. She read the book faster than I did. And we are unpacking the money, the power dynamics, the red flags, and so many of the lessons about trust, transparency and agency in relationships. Let's get into it.
Heather Bonaparthe, welcome back to So Money. My gosh.

**Heather Bonaparthe** (3:28)
Thanks for having me. I'm so excited we're doing this.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (3:31)
We're going to co-pilot this. This requires, we need all hands on deck.

**Heather Bonaparthe** (3:35)
All hands on deck. I mean, this was like born from the DMs. You and I were like popping off. We're like, we need to talk about this.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (3:43)
Let's get into it. So, audience, you know, I've been talking about this for some time, that I have been immersed in this book called Strangers. It's right now as we are recording the number one New York Times bestselling book by Belle Burden about her marriage, a memoir of marriage and really the breakup of her marriage.
I will say that at the beginning of this book, because I embarked on it, I was like, kind of eye rolling it. I had sort of a stink eye about it just because I thought, well, here we go again. I had obviously, I had an understanding of what I was getting myself into. I had watched the Oprah interview snippets. I had understood the synopsis, the Wall Street Journal, Excer, all of it. The idea being that this woman, this aristocrat for all intents and purposes.

**Heather Bonaparthe** (4:35)