You know, at some point, people are going to ask a lot of questions about billionaires’ breakups. How did it happen? Why did it happen? Don’t they have everything? Doesn’t money solve all issues, if not most?
Today’s ST highlighted a number of them. They have more money than they can ever spend all in several lifetimes, yet no amount of it can guarantee a lifelong union. We all know that. Money in fact brings in more issues.
Tech nerds are no different from the Don Juan DeMarcos of this world. Bill Gates’ 27-year-old marriage can’t bear the wily strain of his marital indiscretions. They may be world-renown philanthropist couple, saving the world from common plagues one life at a time, and even being named Time magazine 2005 (together with Bono), but when it comes to till-death-do-us-part, it’s more like till-I-can’t-bear-with-you-anymore-we-part.
Reports have been circulating that Bill “pursued several women working for him at Microsoft and at the (charity) foundation.” Bill is also a friend of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. And they have had several private meetings in early 2000s.
Adding to that list is the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, 57. He is worth an unbelievable sum of US$177 billion. He married novelist Mackenzie Scott in 1992, and four kids later, in 2019, they divorced. They separated before that.
Again, rumors swirled that Jeff was involved with current girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, before the divorce in 2019.
Anyway, Mackenzie has since remarried to a high school chemistry teacher Dan Jewett in March this year. I guess chemistry beats big data hands down?
Then we have the mercurial Elon Musk. His relationships are complicated, being divorced three times, twice with the same woman (actress Talulah Riley) that he had an on-and-off affair with, even during his first marriage to Canadian author Justine Wilson. Elon Musk has six children with Justine in a 8-year union.
Lesson? You know, as I read the report (by Benson Ang), I ask myself, what marital advice can I give to my two daughters when it comes to choosing a life partner?”
Well, my mother always half-jestingly tells them to marry rich guys - for at the very least they will be rich in a breakup and be set for life; if happiness for a lifetime is just not a realistic goal with one’s spouse.
She does have a point you know, even if it is a shallow one, because Mackenzie and Melinda are billionaires after the split up. Mackenzie met Jeff at a hedge fund in 1992 when she was his assistant. And Melinda was a general manager at Microsoft. Mind you, Mackenzie is now happily married and Jeff thinks he is a great guy. Mackenzie is giving her billions away.
Anyway, we always tell our daughters (or sons) that marriage is to be taken seriously. Mutual respect, understanding and dignity are the red fine print in a marital vow. But, over time, marriage has to fight with age, overfamiliarity, contempt and temptations, which this world obviously lacks none of.
So, if I would to offer an advice, bearing in mind even the wisest men, namely, Confucius and Socrates, left their marriages in tatters, I guess I would tell my daughters straight up that happy people in a marriage cheat too. That should get their attention, right? And ground them in reality too.
Money may buy you respect, deference and all the boastings you can throw at those who secretly envy you and want to be like you, it may also be a prominent reason why you stray in the first place. For success may bring many things to the marital table, but it can also break it for good. Look at King David...enough said?
(And I wouldn’t even talk about Solomon, whose status differs greatly with the common man, of course).
Going back to my daughters, I think I would gently remind them that sexual exclusivity in a monogamous union intended for life will always be an existential challenge, not just biologically, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
As a father and a husband myself, in a marriage of 21 years, my daughter must know that an enduring marriage starts not at the aisle, not even at the honeymoon, where intimacy and consummation are established. Ironically, it starts only when you start to have second thoughts about it, and in turn, confront yourself to choose how you want to respond to it. And such second thoughts will surely come. Doubts are an integral part of us, so are faith, hope and reconciliation.
My daughters must know that their best insurance against a breakup is to love intentionally. There is no autopilot to love. Nothing loosens the heart from its marital promise more than a heart that starts to take things for granted.
In fact, my son ought to drill that into his spirit, for it takes two to clap, two souls intertwine. Soul mates are two souls joined as one, and not two souls doing their own things.
So, to my kids, your best bet for confessing “I do” at the aisle and “I still do” at your deathbed is to arrest every moment of second thoughts. Because they, like emotional weed, do grow over time when you let them be (of course, this differs for different people in different seasons trapped in a perpetually abusive relationship).
Other than that kind of toxic marital union, the promise of faithfulness is a lot of work, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Let me end with the wise words of a renown psychotherapist Esther Perel, who wrote the book “The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity”.
“Our partners do not belong to us; they are only on loan, with an option to renew - or not. Knowing that we can lose them does not have to undermine commitment; rather, it mandates an active engagement that long-term couples often lose. The realisation that our loved ones are forever elusive should jolt us out of complacency, in the most positive sense.”
“The current of aliveness, once awoken, is a force hard to resist. What must be resisted are the dwindling curiosity, the flaccid engagements, the grim resignation, the desiccating routines. Domestic deadness is often a crisis of imagination.”
So, keep not just the flame of passion alive; ignite your imagination too. For monogamy, like rental renewal, demands your conscientious engagement to keep the heart and mind focused on, and stand unwavering by, the signed dotted line.
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