Bill and Melinda Gates worked hard on bringing equality in their marriage and raised three children together.
Even the best marriages might crumble someday because we stopped paying attention to the finer aspects of the relationship. Even those who have been together for decades might realize that their marriage isn't making them happy anymore.
Bill and Melinda Gates sent shockwaves in the world of business and philanthropy recently when they revealed that they were getting divorced after 27 years of being married. The couple has been married since 1994 and has three children together. The co-founder of Microsoft was around 39 when he married Melinda, who is nine years younger than him, as per CNBC. Their love story had started with doubts but eventually, they decided to commit to each other.
Two years ago, in the Netflix docuseries Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates, the couple covered a range of topics, from his business to his longtime marriage with Melinda. In the final episode of the three-part docuseries, the director asked Bill, "If you got hit by a bus today, died, what's the one thing, the one thing you said, 'God, I wish I had done that I haven't done?'"
"You know, thanking Melinda," Bill answered, according to People. Earlier in the docuseries, he referred to her as "totally my partner."
In fact, according to an interview with People, their friend Mike Slade said that their marriage has always been an equal partnership. "It doesn't feel like there's any inequality, even though he's the one who started Microsoft and not her," Slade said. "He appreciates everything about her as opposed to complaining about her. I've never heard him complain about her. He's the only person I know on this earth who I've never heard complain about his wife," Slade added.
The centibillionaire took the decision to marry Melinda after some serious thought after all. He had made a pros and cons list about their relationship before tying the knot. "You know, we cared a lot for each other and there were only two possibilities: either, we were going to break up or we were going to get married," he said, as per USA Today.
"He had to make a decision," Melinda Gates had said. She had walked into his bedroom and witnessed him making the list. "His whiteboard had the pros and the cons of getting married," she shared in the docuseires. "Bill wanted to be married, but he didn't know whether he could actually commit to it and have Microsoft," she said.
It took him another year to realize his true feelings for her. It was "sort of to our surprise, certainly my surprise, we said, 'Hey, I love you.'" he said. "And she said she loved me and then it was like, ‘Wow, and now what is going to happen?'"
The couple eventually tied the knot in a romantic Hawaiian wedding. Initially, they found themselves stumbling to find balance in the relationship. Melinda says they "didn't quite have it right at first."
"So often we assume – both the women and the men in the marriage – that stuff falls to the mom. I was trying to show how I had to look at these issues and I had to name my truth to my husband for us to be able to change," she said. "I think people have a certain view of Bill, because he was a high-charging CEO running Microsoft. I think people must think, 'Oh well, Melinda must not really have equality with Bill.' Actually, I have total equality with Bill. But it took awhile for us to get there."
She shared one example of that in her book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. She wrote that Bill used to drive one of their daughters to kindergarten and that had inspired other women to ask their husbands to pitch in on morning drop-offs.
It is difficult to let go of a relationship we have worked so hard on but we believe that we can no longer continue to grow together in the next phase of their lives, according to the couple's official Twitter statement announcing their separation.
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Cover image source: Getty Images | Photo by (L) Diane Freed (R) Brian Ach
