The Moment
Flobelle “Belle” Fairbanks Burden has the kind of pedigree old New York used to print on calling cards. Granddaughter of legendary socialite Babe Paley, descendant of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, successful New York lawyer, mother of four, Martha’s Vineyard house, city apartment – the whole thing read like a Nancy Meyers movie.
Until March 2020, when the movie turned into a psychological thriller.
According to Burden’s new book, Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, she was quarantining on Martha’s Vineyard with her hedge-funder husband Henry Davis and two of their kids when she got a voicemail from an unknown man: your husband is having an affair with my wife. Davis, then 60, allegedly admitted he’d had a month-long relationship with a 35-year-old colleague and that the woman later attempted suicide after the affair was exposed.
Within days, Burden says, Davis announced he wanted a divorce, packed a bag, and left the Vineyard for New York without even saying goodbye to their daughters. On the phone soon after, she writes that he told her, “I thought I was happy but I’m not… I feel like a switch has flipped. I’m done.”
In her account, Davis essentially walked away from their entire life: the Massachusetts house, the New York apartment, and custody of their three daughters and son. He reportedly told her, “You can have the house and the apartment. You can have custody of the kids. I don’t want any of it.”
Post-divorce, she says he downsized into a sleek two-bedroom, then turned the second bedroom into an office – making it clear, in her mind, that his children would not be overnight guests. Six years on, she writes that he shows up for the occasional dinner or tennis match but has not really co-parented or taken holidays with them. She has sole guardianship.
The Take
On one level, yes, this is a story about the one percent: a Vanderbilt descendant, a hedge funder husband, a $4.7 million Martha’s Vineyard getaway and an Upper East Side address. The “downsize” that has everyone talking is still a nice New York two-bedroom. No one is wondering how to keep the lights on.
But underneath the marble countertops, it’s an extremely familiar story: man hits peak career in his 60s, trades in his long-term wife for someone half his age, and treats fatherhood like an optional subscription he can quietly cancel.
What makes Burden’s version so jarring is how clinical it all sounds. He doesn’t just leave; he opts out. The alleged “no custody and no overnights” isn’t just a legal arrangement, it’s a statement: I’m starting over, and the old life is clutter. The analogy that kept flashing in my mind? A CEO spinning off a “non-core asset” to focus on a shinier division.
There’s also the age piece. Burden was 50 when he left; the other woman was reportedly 35. One of the last things she says he told her: “You’re fine. You’re still young.” The kind of line that sounds supportive until you remember he was using it as a parting gift.
I’m not sure the public is obsessing over this because of the zip codes. It’s because she’s saying the quiet part out loud. A lot of people, especially women 40+, know how it feels to be treated like your expiration date comes sooner than your husband’s. The pandemic just sped up whatever cracks were already there, from starter marriages in walk-ups to multi-million-dollar compounds on Martha’s Vineyard.
Is every detail exactly as she describes? That’s for Davis to answer if he chooses. But as a cultural text, this memoir is already a Rorschach test: some will see “poor little rich girl,” others will see the emotional version of a hit-and-run.
Receipts
Confirmed:
- Flobelle “Belle” Fairbanks Burden is a New York lawyer and the granddaughter of socialite Babe Paley and a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt, as widely reported in coverage of her book.
- Her memoir, Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, was released on January 13, according to multiple reports and publisher materials.
- An excerpt from the memoir describing the March 2020 Martha’s Vineyard incident and the affair revelation was published in The Times, which she and other outlets have cited.
Unverified / Alleged (Burden’s Account):
- That Henry Davis had a month-long affair with a 35-year-old colleague and admitted it to her.
- That the other woman attempted suicide after the affair was exposed.
- That Davis told Burden she could have the house, apartment, and full custody because he “didn’t want any of it.”
- That he chose a two-bedroom apartment in New York and converted the second bedroom into an office, leaving no space for the children to stay overnight.
- That, six years later, he has limited contact with the kids and no meaningful co-parenting role, with no shared holidays since he left.
These points come from Burden’s memoir and from an article summarizing the book and its claims from a major UK-based outlet on January 14, 2026, along with the excerpt published in The Times. Davis has not, as of this writing, publicly given his own detailed version of events.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you’re not up on your mid-century socialites, Babe Paley was a fashion and society icon in New York from the 1930s through the 1960s, famous for her style, her marriage to CBS chairman William Paley, and her position at the center of elite Manhattan life. Burden is her granddaughter and grew up in that world of old money and old rules.
Burden met Henry Davis at a corporate law firm and married him in 1999. They built what looked like a textbook prestige life: four children, a New York apartment, and a $4.7 million Martha’s Vineyard home. Davis moved from law into hedge funds, and Burden continued practicing as a lawyer. By early 2020, their kids were older, his career was peaking, and then the pandemic hit. They decamped to the Vineyard on March 15, 2020, with their two youngest children.
Six days later, that voicemail blew everything up. Within a week, she says her husband had left, announced he wanted a divorce, and begun the process of cutting ties with both the marriage and the daily work of parenting. The memoir tracks not just the moment of impact but the long, slow aftermath of rebuilding her life and her relationship with her children as a solo parent.
What’s Next
Now that Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage is out, expect a few things.
First, the conversation. This is catnip for book clubs: pandemic, infidelity, age gaps, old money, and the question of whether someone can – or should – simply opt out of being a parent once they’re tired of the marriage. Women who’ve been left for younger partners are going to see themselves in these pages, even if their “Vineyard” was just a modest rental.
Second, the response. Davis has mostly been described rather than heard from. If he ever chooses to speak publicly, we may get another version of this story. Until then, the public record is essentially Burden’s memoir, the excerpt in The Times, and coverage repeating her claims. That doesn’t mean her story is untrue; it just means it’s one side.
Third, the bigger ripple: stories like this push us to rethink what we call a “good divorce.” Keeping the house and financial security is one kind of safety; being left to do 100 percent of the emotional labor with the kids is another kind of cost. Plenty of not-rich single parents know exactly how that trade-off feels.
As Burden herself writes, she may never fully understand why he left or why he left in that way. But by putting the most humiliating, painful parts of her life on the page, she’s turning a private implosion into a public case study of what happens when a long marriage shatters at the exact moment the world shuts down.
Your turn: When you hear stories like Belle Burden’s, do you mostly see privileged drama, or do you see universal patterns about how some people exit long marriages?
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