Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I was 10 years old when the beautiful 19 year old preschool teacher became the fiancée of Prince Charles. I adored her. My mother woke me up in the middle of the night so I could watch her fairy tale wedding. I continued to adore her and thought very highly of the important things she did to raise awareness and create empathy in the public for AIDS patients, etc. I could see that she was a very loving mother.
And then over time the truth of her unhappiness in the marriage and how she had been duped and manipulated and used as a broodmare by a man who never loved her not even a little bit became public fodder. The Prince was revealed to be a nasty selfish man. At this time I was a college student undergoing my own awakening about patriarchy and the oppression of women and I began to see the beautiful Princess as an example of all the wrongs that are done to women - going far back before she even met her Prince. And a few years later I was a graduate student cheering her independence via divorce and her efforts to forge her own place apart from the nasty institution that used her and discarded her. And then the weekend before I started law school I came home late at night from a dinner with new friends/classmates and turned on the news to hear of her tragic end. I was heartbroken and something in me changed with that tragedy that never changed back again.
When you really care about someone for years and you see them devastated in a loveless marriage and the biggest instrument of that marriage’s destruction is a selfish vile person who doesn’t respect the sanctity of her own vows or anyone else’s, do you ever really forgive that person just because your friend dies and is no longer there as the reminder of her suffering? I can’t.
I fully understand that Diana was broken in childhood, like many of us are, by truly toxic parenting. I admire her all the more for having retained a huge heart for other people and for being determined to raise her sons differently, with an abundance of affection and encouragement and closeness. I believe if her husband had made the effort they could have had a marriage that lasted and wasn’t miserable - but he never intended to make the effort, not even before he put the ring on her finger. He had his girlfriend befriend her and they manipulated and gaslighted her together, and drove her further into eating disorder and cutting and other destructive behavior by showing her not one ounce of compassion.
I’ve changed so much from that 10 year old that I find the concept of monarchy utterly abhorrent and I cannot understand why any country keeps it still. I hope I live to see the end of monarchy in the UK. From the comments on British tabloid articles about the Queen’s pronouncement it seems that many of her subjects are offended by the prospect of King Tampax and Queen Slag the blatant adulterers, so to that end maybe it’s a great thing that she will disgrace the throne with her tampax boy - drive up the numbers of republicans in the UK. Pedophiles, adulterers, traders of knighthoods to foreigners for cash donations - the Queen’s most famous children are no credit to her. Ironically it is Diana’s child who is the last best hope for redeeming the monarchy.
So much this. I'm a bit younger than you, PP, but I think the same way.
Charles and Camilla are an abusive, toxic couple (they're certainly not "in love", they just have a codependent bond and they enjoy being narcissists together) and I also don't see the monarchy lasting much longer.
The Queen has been an exceptional woman, but they truly don't make 'em like her anymore.
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