4 ms·

“I Was a Starter Wife”: Inside America's Messiest Divorce (2010)

34 points by iwh 11y ago

davidw 11y ago
In case you guys haven't seen it, there is some great discussion of (bootstrapped) startup life here: http://zenfounder.com/ http://zenfounder.com/ - not all the episodes cover things that interest me, but there are some good ones. Edit - I don't get the downvotes - to me my family is the most important thing in my life, and anything I can learn to make things better for us is well worth it. I figured it was sort of relevant to an article about a divorce, especially since Sherry has advice for regular people who are not billionaires.
epx 11y ago
A perfectly unbiased text :D
- jpdoherty 11y ago
  Since she's one half of the divorce in question, wouldn't it be a little sociopathic if it were unbiased?
facepalm 11y ago
It seems she changed the color of her hair several times. That sounds very messy indeed. At least typical women's magazine readers can probably relate to the extreme emotional turmoil that signifies.
- Zarkonnen 11y ago
  I think it's probably more the constant belittling, criticism, and massive power imbalance that was stressful? sigh
  - facepalm 11y ago
    Sounds like every marriage, except perhaps for the power imbalance. Then again, why is it a power imbalance just because somebody is a billionaire? And I'm pretty sure she will get some money out of it, you can not prenup away everything. Ah, here it is in another article: "In addition to paying all of her household expenses and anything related to the children, I send Justine $20,000 (after tax) per month for clothing, shoes and other discretionary items. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-my-divorce-2010-7#ixzz3YVklpvEP http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-m... " And "According to the marital agreement, Justine would receive approximately $20 million dollars after tax". What a horrible life it must be.
Zarkonnen 11y ago
Pretty conflicted about this story. I am... not surprised by any of the details in it, and I'm not fond of startup founder hero worship. But I'm uncomfortable with this kind of public airing of grievances. If Musk wrote this kind of piece about her, he'd come across as a massive asshole. But then, he's clearly the one with far more power, and he'd be punching down the power gradient, kicking her when she's down. Does that make a difference? I'm genuinely not sure.
- bsbechtel 11y ago
  I remember seeing this when it was originally written. While I laud Elon's professional accomplishments, it's not hard to accept that he has some massive faults when it comes to personal relationships, not unlike many successful entrepreneurs before him. At the same time, my immediate reaction to this piece was that Justine Musk is a professional novelist. Her job is to use words and her writing to entertain people, part of that entertainment being making people feel certain emotions and thoughts through the stories she tells. I couldn't read this without taking her side of the story with a grain of salt.
  - facepalm 11y ago
    Why "faults"? It sounds as if he said "take it or leave it", isn't that fair? Why do you have to have a specific personality to be accepted? Nobody is forced to marry the guy.
bryanlarsen 11y ago
Elon's perspective: http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-my-divorce-2010-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-m...
- danielweber 11y ago
  In a California divorce, the wealthier spouse must pay both sides of the battle even if they are not the aggressor. Holy misaligned incentives, Batman.
- hedgew 11y ago
  Marriage is probably a high risk factor for entrepreneurs. "In a California divorce, the wealthier spouse must pay both sides of the battle even if they are not the aggressor." "I even had to endure her attempt to enjoin my companies, which would have required her participation and permission in every significant corporate decision."
themartorana 11y ago
There's a lot of pain here, and the article is of course one-sided and feels rather unnecessary to me (but I'm sure necessary to her). All that said, surviving the loss of a child is rare. It's a nuclear explosion of the rawest emotion and pain that I've only, luckily, observed from the outside looking in. If things weren't rock solid before, it's difficult to imagine they would survive what must be the most horrible experience a human being can suffer.
bryanlarsen 11y ago
What an awful title. "Messiest divorce"? The only thing that makes it messy is the staggering amount of money involved and the fact that Elon lives in the public eye. It sounds like there is no dispute over the kids, which is what really makes a divorce messy.
parennoob 11y ago
I don't know why this is on HN, but here is Elon's version of things: http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-my-divorce-2010-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-m... "In addition to paying all of her household expenses and anything related to the children, I send Justine $20,000 (after tax) per month for clothing, shoes and other discretionary items." I guess two lessons HN readers can take from this are: a) Don't get married if possible. If she was just his girlfriend, this would be only a bad breakup story apart from the kids, which leads to.... b) If you do get married, don't have kids with the person you married if you are having constant interpersonal conflicts with them. Five kids probably turned the divorce pretty messy. No kids + the post-nup she signed might have made it more clean-cut.
sigzero 11y ago
Why are we re-visiting this 5 years later?
imaginenore 11y ago
I know of at least a billion women who would trade places with her. All that whining about how badly she was treated. He asked her to dye her hair, the horror. She had financial access to pretty much any activity one can imagine, and she chose to be bored and whiny instead of busy doing something cool.
sergiotapia 11y ago
This is funny to me. If these people were poor they would be doing the exact same thing on Facebook. But since they have a couple of million they don't post this on their wall but on actual journalism website. Keep your dirty laundry private - nobody wants to see that and it's ugly.
SFjulie1 11y ago
Well, that is what you get for marrying a psychopath. Entrepreneur's first quality is to assess situation without the filter of emotions, it logically has a tendency to induce this as a routine. And it is wise. So be it induced or be it a professional hazard, entrepreneur's will grow their tendency for control and maximimizing their utility in any dimesions without regard for emotions. She is just a minor collateral victim of a normal trait that brilliant entrepreneur should have. Elon is not a cold bastard, he is a cold visionaire: when he says all IT success are based on monopolies and that governments should allow them, he is right. Never go for competition, but always tell the one going for competition they have "fire in their eyes", this way you will have less competition on your monopoly. It is wise. Morally he may be not be your cup of tea. But, what he is doing is socially profitable for at least some of us (investors, customers, employees, state (through taxes)). As stated in Plato's Republic, the wisest amongst us should not be under the scrutinity of the people that don't understand what is required to rule the city.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
belorn 11y ago
The start of this article sounded like any modern story. Two adults going through education and trying to make a carer, both having long term plans and has jobs in order to support themselves. And then, in a instant, he handed her his credit card and all that talk about bartending jobs and becoming an aspiring writer get pushed aside. Instead its about postnuptials, and how a life without him was unthinkable. He also seem equally changed, with "I am the alpha in this relationship", which sound completely absurd and nothing two equals adults would ever say to each other. When the divorce comes, the focus is solely on the entitlement from being a wife.

34 points by iwh 11y ago

In case you guys haven't seen it, there is some great discussion of (bootstrapped) startup life here: http://zenfounder.com/ http://zenfounder.com/ - not all the episodes cover things that interest me, but there are some good ones. Edit - I don't get the downvotes - to me my family is the most important thing in my life, and anything I can learn to make things better for us is well worth it. I figured it was sort of relevant to an article about a divorce, especially since Sherry has advice for regular people who are not billionaires.

epx 11y ago

A perfectly unbiased text :D

jpdoherty 11y ago
Since she's one half of the divorce in question, wouldn't it be a little sociopathic if it were unbiased?

facepalm 11y ago

It seems she changed the color of her hair several times. That sounds very messy indeed. At least typical women's magazine readers can probably relate to the extreme emotional turmoil that signifies.

Zarkonnen 11y ago
I think it's probably more the constant belittling, criticism, and massive power imbalance that was stressful? sigh
- facepalm 11y ago
  Sounds like every marriage, except perhaps for the power imbalance. Then again, why is it a power imbalance just because somebody is a billionaire? And I'm pretty sure she will get some money out of it, you can not prenup away everything. Ah, here it is in another article: "In addition to paying all of her household expenses and anything related to the children, I send Justine $20,000 (after tax) per month for clothing, shoes and other discretionary items. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-my-divorce-2010-7#ixzz3YVklpvEP http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-m... " And "According to the marital agreement, Justine would receive approximately $20 million dollars after tax". What a horrible life it must be.

Zarkonnen 11y ago

Pretty conflicted about this story. I am... not surprised by any of the details in it, and I'm not fond of startup founder hero worship. But I'm uncomfortable with this kind of public airing of grievances. If Musk wrote this kind of piece about her, he'd come across as a massive asshole. But then, he's clearly the one with far more power, and he'd be punching down the power gradient, kicking her when she's down. Does that make a difference? I'm genuinely not sure.

bsbechtel 11y ago
I remember seeing this when it was originally written. While I laud Elon's professional accomplishments, it's not hard to accept that he has some massive faults when it comes to personal relationships, not unlike many successful entrepreneurs before him. At the same time, my immediate reaction to this piece was that Justine Musk is a professional novelist. Her job is to use words and her writing to entertain people, part of that entertainment being making people feel certain emotions and thoughts through the stories she tells. I couldn't read this without taking her side of the story with a grain of salt.
- facepalm 11y ago
  Why "faults"? It sounds as if he said "take it or leave it", isn't that fair? Why do you have to have a specific personality to be accepted? Nobody is forced to marry the guy.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

Elon's perspective: http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-my-divorce-2010-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-m...

danielweber 11y ago
In a California divorce, the wealthier spouse must pay both sides of the battle even if they are not the aggressor. Holy misaligned incentives, Batman.
hedgew 11y ago
Marriage is probably a high risk factor for entrepreneurs. "In a California divorce, the wealthier spouse must pay both sides of the battle even if they are not the aggressor." "I even had to endure her attempt to enjoin my companies, which would have required her participation and permission in every significant corporate decision."

themartorana 11y ago

There's a lot of pain here, and the article is of course one-sided and feels rather unnecessary to me (but I'm sure necessary to her). All that said, surviving the loss of a child is rare. It's a nuclear explosion of the rawest emotion and pain that I've only, luckily, observed from the outside looking in. If things weren't rock solid before, it's difficult to imagine they would survive what must be the most horrible experience a human being can suffer.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

What an awful title. "Messiest divorce"? The only thing that makes it messy is the staggering amount of money involved and the fact that Elon lives in the public eye. It sounds like there is no dispute over the kids, which is what really makes a divorce messy.

parennoob 11y ago

I don't know why this is on HN, but here is Elon's version of things: http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-my-divorce-2010-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-m... "In addition to paying all of her household expenses and anything related to the children, I send Justine $20,000 (after tax) per month for clothing, shoes and other discretionary items." I guess two lessons HN readers can take from this are: a) Don't get married if possible. If she was just his girlfriend, this would be only a bad breakup story apart from the kids, which leads to.... b) If you do get married, don't have kids with the person you married if you are having constant interpersonal conflicts with them. Five kids probably turned the divorce pretty messy. No kids + the post-nup she signed might have made it more clean-cut.

sigzero 11y ago

Why are we re-visiting this 5 years later?

imaginenore 11y ago

I know of at least a billion women who would trade places with her. All that whining about how badly she was treated. He asked her to dye her hair, the horror. She had financial access to pretty much any activity one can imagine, and she chose to be bored and whiny instead of busy doing something cool.

sergiotapia 11y ago

This is funny to me. If these people were poor they would be doing the exact same thing on Facebook. But since they have a couple of million they don't post this on their wall but on actual journalism website. Keep your dirty laundry private - nobody wants to see that and it's ugly.

SFjulie1 11y ago

Well, that is what you get for marrying a psychopath. Entrepreneur's first quality is to assess situation without the filter of emotions, it logically has a tendency to induce this as a routine. And it is wise. So be it induced or be it a professional hazard, entrepreneur's will grow their tendency for control and maximimizing their utility in any dimesions without regard for emotions. She is just a minor collateral victim of a normal trait that brilliant entrepreneur should have. Elon is not a cold bastard, he is a cold visionaire: when he says all IT success are based on monopolies and that governments should allow them, he is right. Never go for competition, but always tell the one going for competition they have "fire in their eyes", this way you will have less competition on your monopoly. It is wise. Morally he may be not be your cup of tea. But, what he is doing is socially profitable for at least some of us (investors, customers, employees, state (through taxes)). As stated in Plato's Republic, the wisest amongst us should not be under the scrutinity of the people that don't understand what is required to rule the city.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

belorn 11y ago

The start of this article sounded like any modern story. Two adults going through education and trying to make a carer, both having long term plans and has jobs in order to support themselves. And then, in a instant, he handed her his credit card and all that talk about bartending jobs and becoming an aspiring writer get pushed aside. Instead its about postnuptials, and how a life without him was unthinkable. He also seem equally changed, with "I am the alpha in this relationship", which sound completely absurd and nothing two equals adults would ever say to each other. When the divorce comes, the focus is solely on the entitlement from being a wife.