First it was the richest couple, Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott in 2019. Now, it is the fourth richest couple, Bill and Melinda Gates. Yes, you’ve heard. They are divorcing; in modernspeak, it’s decoupling.
The Bezos marriage lasted about 25 years. The Gates union lasted about 27 years. The former have four adult kids and the latter (Gates) have 3 adult kids, the youngest is 18.
Billionaires do get divorce you know. They are emotional beings too. They vacillate between love and hate, envy and contentment, sorrow and joy too. Like the Beatles song says, “Money can’t buy me love.”
Wealth or fame, or both, does not provide lifelong innoculation. Akin to the covid vaccination, you either adapt or change in a marriage. For the Bezos and Gates, well, they change. Some marriages endure, others just end.
Bill (65) and Melinda (56) may be a match from day one, marrying in 1994, with symmetrical goals to make the world a better place, but personal vows are not always made for a lifetime. There’s no guarantee in this world.
“Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives.” The statement they both released on Monday reads.
“We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phrase of our lives.”
“We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.”
Together, as a couple for the last 27 years, they have led in a grand vision to make the world a place where many find hope and live out their dreams. Their Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pumped in more than $36b between 1994 and 2018. The foundation has over $51b in assets.
Just last year alone, during the Covid-19 pandemic, they have given out some $1.75b to vaccine initiatives and research.
After the split, they said that the work of the foundation is likely to go on. Bill said: “This is not some small family foundation that’s going to fall apart because a marriage is falling apart.”
I wish them all the best that lifelong friendship bestows. The fact that they remain friends, and responsible parents to their children is what is most redeeming about their 27-year union.
Lesson? Well, not really a lesson, but a statement that I hope this is not going to be a trend - whether as an subtle encouragement to cut the knot or discouragement to tie the knot.
Mind you, rich people are trailblazers. And the Bezos and Gates wield great worldly influence because in terms of achievements, whether financial, technology and philanthropy, they serve as examples for others to emulate. A shining city on the hill, the gatekeepers and trendsetters of society.
In a joint petition filed to dissolve their marriage, they cited that their union was “irretrievably broken”. I know divorces. As a family lawyer, I have attended weddings where love is prepared to overcome all. For it is all in their eyes, that is, the way they look at each other. The eyes are the window to the soul, the doorway to the heart.
When the eyes lock in warm embrace, holding the champagne glasses before a crowd of witnesses, you can feel the radiance of a new commitment on a journey that may, for some, turn out to be more experimental than covenantal. That journey is however reflected in the soul of their eyes. It glows. It’s shared vision. It takes hold.
But, in the office when you see the eyes of someone who has finally mustered the courage to file for divorce, a decision not lightly made, the eyes are almost lifeless. It’s tired, jaded. It’s pained, expressionless.
Overcoming love had somehow been overwhelmed. And the last straw that broke the back is not so much in the weight of the straw, but it is in the back that has given up long time ago. Emotional divorce indeed precedes legal divorce. And the eyes tell more than what the ink on paper can ever express.
So I can imagine what Bill and Melinda, not as billionaires but human beings, have gone through. Imagine having so much in common as husband and wife, and both so devoted to nurturing three grown up kids, while at the same time, having built a philanthropic empire that aims to transform lives all over the world, yet, hearts joined in fulfilling responsibilities could not remain joined for marriage. Like water droplets, the years hide an erosion that no one had anticipated.
Their sad state of the union is captured in their joint statement - “we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phrase of our live.” Indeed there is no guarantee in life.
I started the lesson by saying that I hope this doesn’t become a trend. For each marriage is like a fingerprint - no two of them are alike. Personalities differ. Circumstances differ. Life-paths of couples differ too.
At times, staying together requires couples to fight together, and not each other. You are therefore accountable to the love you have promised to another. You may not be as rich or famous as the Gates, but everyday is a choice in your marital journey, a personal choice that all adds up.
And news of a famous breakup is not an excuse for you to claim that a lifelong marriage is a myth. It ought to challenge you to believe that the choices you make make the difference. Anything that is lifelong requires a lifetime commitment.
Let me end with a marital advice from a famous couple too. He was asked - “What would you say is the secret to a long and happy marriage?”
He replied: “First of all, we accommodate each other. There was nothing we fundamentally disagreed on. She knew knew my quirks and I knew her eccentricities.”
Like Bill and Melinda Foundation, they too have laid the cornerstone of a foundation, being equal-partners in a marriage with three adult children. They are Lee Kuan Yew and his lifelong partner, Kwa Geok Choo.
And like I said, there’s no guarantee. Yet, whether a marriage is experimental or covenantal, the only guarantee is in the choices we make, one day at a time.
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