What are the reasons for Bill and Melinda Gates' divorce?
SPOTLIGHT - The Microsoft founder and his wife didn't immediately say anything about their reasons for separating. However, tensions had existed in their relationship for several years.
The surprise of the past announcement, remains the great unknown: why is one of the most powerful couples on the planet separating? After 27 years of marriage, billionaire Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates announced their divorce on Monday. "After careful consideration and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage," they tweeted in a joint statement.
The Gates, who have three children, added that they would continue to "work together at their foundation," the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which fights poverty and disease, but that they no longer believe they "can. evolve together as a couple ".
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, now 65, and his wife, 56, a former director of the computer giant, did not immediately say anything about their reasons for separating. Their joint statement, however, suggests the existence of differences within their union. The philanthropic couple even insist on the "work" done to make their relationship work.
"Can I do this?"
Words that echo an interview given by Melinda Gates to the Sunday Times in 2019, where she reported on the difficulty for the founder of Microsoft to reconcile work and family life. "When he was struggling to make the decision to get married, it was clear that it wasn't about me, but 'Can I find the right balance between work and family life?'" her then.
"Believe me, I remember some days that were so incredibly hard in our marriage where you said to yourself: 'can I do this?', Continued the one who also recognized the tensions in her marriage in her book The Moment of Lift, released in 2019.
According to the New York Times, which quotes members of their entourage, Bill and Melinda Gates have indeed "been confronted with relationship difficulties" in recent years, while ensuring that their marriage continues. The multibillionaire would thus notably leave the board of directors of Microsoft "in order to spend more time with his family".
"For and against marriage"
Bill and Melinda Gates met at a dinner party in New York City shortly after Melinda joined Microsoft in 1987. In a documentary released on Netflix in 2019, Inside Bill's brain, the co-founder Microsoft had explained that after dating for a year, they found themselves faced with the obligation to make a choice: "either break up or get married."
Bill had made a whiteboard list of "pros and cons of marriage," Melinda joked. Twenty-seven years later, the future ex-Mrs. Gates does not seem to have the heart to laugh anymore.
