This was first published in my old blog. The below version has been slightly edited.
*I CANNOT STAND that Twelfth of never song and I still can’t understand how it became such a popular wedding song*
I recently finished Until the twelfth of never by Bella Stumbo. There’s a lot to be said. It is first and foremost, a very long and descriptive book. It is honest too, and kind of fair to both parties (I still think the author favored Betty). Vivid, detailed, too detailed maybe? I’m not complaining, I couldn’t put it down.
I knew the story and still, the adults, their actions, and the events described seemed so outrageous. If I didn’t know the story beforehand, I would have thought “nice work of fiction” but all of it is definitely real; Betty Broderick is alive and Dan Broderick and his mistress-turned-wife were once real and alive, too. This isn’t a book review but more so what I take from the Betty Broderick story, in general.
First of all, why did God even allow Dan and Betty to cross paths? From the courtship to the wedding night to later developments, it is clear to me that Betty and Dan Broderick were always going to be a disaster.
Let’s start with ‘Danny boy’. If based on accounts other than this book I could see why Betty finally snapped and did what she did, the detailed stories did confirm the many ways that man provoked his ex-wife. I believe that there was something mentally off with him for I can’t wrap my head around his deep desire to completely annihilate his ex. If Dan had ever genuinely loved Betty, you couldn’t tell from his legal maneuvers to leave her with very little.
After Dan was done using Betty, he became determined to cheat her out of a fair share. Giving her a mere 25% off his monthly earnings was inconceivable to him. He would give her what he felt was right and, of course, what he had in mind was different from Betty’s calculations. Betty, on the other hand, believed that as the ex-wife who’d helped him become powerful Attorney Dan Broderick, she was entitled to half. She felt it was only right but he wouldn’t indulge.
Instead, he set out to punish her: leaving colorful voicemails on his answering machine? judge! trespassing? arrested, and put into jail (for a few days). He made sure that she would be a regular in courtrooms and then stopped her from picking up their children from school. It seems like Dan set out to destroy Betty after he was done with her and surely, he did. He left his former wife a pathetic, angry, delusional, bitter, dangerously resentful woman with nothing to lose.
I found Dan to be both involved and nonchalant. Make no mistake, he was an active player in this battle but I will never get why he had all that energy to legally punish Betty for silly offenses but failed to take proper measures for his personal safety. The death threats, he should have taken seriously but he never did. Instead, he chose to focus on voicemails. He would ask the judge to fine her for calling him ‘fuckface’ (or was it ‘fuckhead’) but when Betty’s therapist informed him of Betty’s threats, he wouldn’t take them seriously. Priorities. Oh yes, Dan was convinced that she wouldn’t physically harm her cash cow. But what cash cow, though? She didn’t get much from the cheapskate. The little financial battles that she won, she fought hard for so I fail to see why he thought that she absolutely needed him alive. I don’t want to say he had it coming but…he was quite negligent where he should have paid extra attention.
And Betty… Where’d she even find all that time and all that energy to waste? From those unhinged voicemails to multiple trips to Dan’s house to destroy his property? Why couldn’t her bitter self just try a little bit harder to move on? He hated her by that point so what was she still trying to hold on to? I’m Catholic, we’re Catholics so it’s till death do us part, huh? Wrong, Betty! You can’t go anywhere good with someone who doesn’t love or like you.
Dan put her through it, yes, but she kept coming back, giving him more incentive to punish her over and over again. She didn’t want it to stop and he played along. She wanted it to go on forever and he obliged. Deep down, they both knew that none of this would end until one of them was gone and surely, Betty made it happen.
I believe that Betty’s first mistake was to play build a man up. I have never in my life seen that starting from scratch with a man thing work out. Men disdain, disrespect, and often come to hate the women who helped them establish themselves. They tend to resent those who’ve seen them struggling and will gladly trade them the minute they’ve made it.
Meanwhile, Betty’s entire defense was that she sacrificed, worked odd jobs, gave birth, aborted, put her body through it, raised and fed, and took care of the home while he was out bettering himself on her dime and as such, she was entitled to a lot better than what he would agree to give her when he was feeling generous.
***
The book makes mention of women who relate to Betty Broderick, some divorcees, some single, and some in relationships. I personally find her pathetic. She represents all that I pity so I can’t see myself in her. She had a BA, she worked well with children. With a lot of help and a lot of hard work, she could have moved on.
I also see Betty as a somewhat intelligent woman so her short-sightedness upsets me. Hard to get past it when she herself referred to Dan’s situation as ‘classic’ and ‘cliché’. She understood it to be a midlife crisis so why couldn’t you just sit back and let the new couple self-destruct?
As standard with most affairs, one of the cheaters would have cheated again. I’m a hundred percent positive that M. Broderick and his new Mrs. wouldn’t have made it. I’m positive that someone would have cheated and left, probably him. Yes, he would have left, I’m sure of that. He was, after all, living an old stereotype. I also don’t think that Dan was capable of genuinely loving anyone, he didn’t even seem to care much for his children and was ready to start a new family with the assistant.
Betty, on the other hand, could have had the last laugh out of the madness but weak and looney as she was, she chose desperation and impulsivity and where is she now? Still dealing with them, somewhat. I’m sure she could have written a book and worked her tears on talk shows. She probably could have turned the entire ordeal into an empowering story for divorcees and gotten some good fame as a result, only had she put her intelligence to use.
***
I kept asking myself: just how do you come to loathe someone you promised to love, honor, and protect just 17 years earlier? People fall out of love yes, but how does that level of pure hatred just manifest itself? Had Dan ever loved Betty at all? She would be released from jail and come home to be greeted by legal letters sent by lawyers. How do you grow to hate someone that much? Was love ever there in the first place? Or did they just use each other, selfish, materialistic, pathetic as they both were?
Was Betty ever sane? Had she ever genuinely loved Dan or was she just obsessed with his potential? Dan was an abusive, cold, unhinged individual but so was Betty. They were a lot alike, personality-wise.
As for the mistress, well, I have no words for her. This story to me is, was, and will forever be about The Brodericks: Betty and Dan. Dan and Betty.