This memoir is Burden coming to terms with the story of her marriage, the man she thought she knew, and the one she discovered during their divorce. That she navigated it all without any in-person support (as she refused to lean on her children in order to try and shield them from their father's seeming lack of care for them) because of the pandemic made it both harder and easier in certain ways. She discusses the way she had blithely allowed her husband to have total control of their finances, leaving her in financial ignorance of both their shared money and his own earned income. This is a cautionary tale, even as she acknowledges her great privilege (descendant of the Vanderbilts and famous socialite Babe Paley's granddaughter). Her background and her privilege though, cannot spare her the pain and suffering of the death of her marriage. She even considers whether it, in fact, contributed to the idea that she should just accept her husband's bad behavior as her due. Interestingly, she mentioned in an interview that she ran this book past him before publication and he only requested two changes, one she made and one she didn't.
The writing here is beautiful, incorporating memories of her marriage when it was good (or she thought it was), the raw pain and confusion of the divorce, and her remembrances of her parents' own brief marriage and their subsequent relationships. This is honest and thoughtful and far more grace-filled towards her ex-husband than he probably deserves. Of course, she examines him carefully, but also examines herself just as carefully to try and present as full and truthful a portrait as one of the interested parties possibly can.
