‘We’re expected to stay quiet about it’: What happens when a long marriage implodes and you want answers?

When author and lawyer Belle Burden's marriage of 21 years came to an abrupt end, she wanted answers. When they weren't very forthcoming, she decided to stop searching for an explanation, instead looking towards the life she wanted to rebuild.

It turns out she isn't alone. When Belle shared her story with Nuala McGovern during an episode of BBC Woman's Hour, the response was huge, with many women sharing their own stories of being blindsided by their marriages ending suddenly.

"I believed I was very happily married," Belle shares, adding, "and then one night I got a call from a man saying his wife was having an affair with my husband."

She continues, "I begged him for an explanation and he would not give it to me. I went down the road of thinking maybe he was in love, maybe it was about money, maybe it was just about me and not loving me anymore."

Frustratingly, Belle still didn't ever get the answers she needed. The more she tried to find them, the more she was simply faced with "a road to misery."

Things needed to change and Belle needed to turn her focus elsewhere and try to find peace without knowing the reasons for her husband's actions.

"What changed it for me was really switching the spotlight from him to myself, and trying to really think about the life that I wanted," she says.

Belle explains, "I think as women, and especially as mothers, we're expected to really stay quiet about it, that's it's perceived as graceful and good to actually not talk about these things. To really quietly clean up the mess."

"That serves to protect the men in the story," she adds, continuing, "and is often to our detriment. I think when you stay quiet, these things can get repeated across generations."

When the segment was posted to Instagram, the comments were sadly filled with women who had a similar experience.

One person wrote, "This absolutely resonates with me. I discovered by sheer chance that my husband of 24 years, and father of our four children, had been having many affairs over many years."

"I met him when I was 18 - he was nine years older than me and I didn’t even know what a red flag was back then let alone spot one. The truth has set me free but only after a journey of research into covert narcissism, red flag spotting, healthy boundary setting and learning to live alone with myself."

Another added, "My situation was exactly the same as this- 27 years together and 21 years married. No explanation or reason was given. I didn't think I could survive it, but 13 years on I've finally healed."