King Charles and Prince William wished Harry a Happy 40th Birthday!

[Anonymous]

I feel sort of bad for Harry. I think he still is not living the sort of life he really wants to live. I mean, many people are not I guess but it is sort of painful to watch him bump around trying to find a purpose and be his own person on this international stage (whether he wants it or not.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. What a low bar.

+1

Now maybe they’ll provide Harry and his family security coverage.

They use “securitay! Our mixed race babies could be murdered in the Windsor Lounge at Heathrooooow!” when what they really mean is “it’s pretty acistray that the crown wouldn’t shut down the internet for criticizing us.”

Even if he dumps her he’s not going to be welcomed back. Hope it was worth it!

You are white washing the hateful racist threats M got. UK is pretty racist and low brow on the whole.

Better she stay in Montecito.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel sort of bad for Harry. I think he still is not living the sort of life he really wants to live. I mean, many people are not I guess but it is sort of painful to watch him bump around trying to find a purpose and be his own person on this international stage (whether he wants it or not.)

Do you think he’d rather be running around England cutting ribbons?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel sort of bad for Harry. I think he still is not living the sort of life he really wants to live. I mean, many people are not I guess but it is sort of painful to watch him bump around trying to find a purpose and be his own person on this international stage (whether he wants it or not.)

Do you think he’d rather be running around England cutting ribbons?

+1 I don't know Prince Harry, but personally, I'd rather live in a California mansion doing a netflix deal and not having to deal with all the rules of the monarchy and the backbiting and media issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel sort of bad for Harry. I think he still is not living the sort of life he really wants to live. I mean, many people are not I guess but it is sort of painful to watch him bump around trying to find a purpose and be his own person on this international stage (whether he wants it or not.)

Do you think he’d rather be running around England cutting ribbons?

It’s a big world. My post meant to imply that he wasn’t happy with either cutting ribbons in England as Will’s employee or being stuck in California in a house he can’t afford and estranged from his family and his wife burning bridges left and right.

Personally, I feel like he would have been happiest living in Africa part time and with Chelsy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel sort of bad for Harry. I think he still is not living the sort of life he really wants to live. I mean, many people are not I guess but it is sort of painful to watch him bump around trying to find a purpose and be his own person on this international stage (whether he wants it or not.)

Do you think he’d rather be running around England cutting ribbons?

It’s a big world. My post meant to imply that he wasn’t happy with either cutting ribbons in England as Will’s employee or being stuck in California in a house he can’t afford and estranged from his family and his wife burning bridges left and right.

Personally, I feel like he would have been happiest living in Africa part time and with Chelsy.

Harry, like all of us, will always have scenarios that "would have been better" for him. Now he needs to put the royals aside, have whatever simplistic relationship with his father that he can (personally I think he should close that door too, but Harry seems to want to stay in touch with his father), focus on life with his new family anywhere else in the world except the UK.

TL;DR. Harry should accept that no good is coming out of his attempts to interact with London.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel sort of bad for Harry. I think he still is not living the sort of life he really wants to live. I mean, many people are not I guess but it is sort of painful to watch him bump around trying to find a purpose and be his own person on this international stage (whether he wants it or not.)

I get where you are coming from. I tend to think his problems are solvable but require some tough choices he might not be prepared to make. But I do think that growing up in that family in that role is a recipe for unhappiness for a lot of people and I don't fault him for struggling with it.

I think the hardest part for him is that his family made him into this weird kind of freak where he's really only suited to do one thing which is be a British royal. He lacks the disposition, cultural intelligence, education, and personality to really do anything else particularly well. And that really is a function of how he was raised. Imagine getting to 40 having learned that the one thing in the world you are suited for is not only miserable to you but also feels actively degrading and humiliating to do. And makes your wife -- the one person you are close to who seems to genuinely believe you are entitled to want more than that -- miserable. Even with all the money and privilege he has that can't be easy.

It was in my 40s that I really grasped the degree to which our families and our upbringings make us. I'm from a really dysfunctional and unhappy family (not the British royals! Think Succession without the billions) and I'm still working out how to be my own person within the boundaries of what my family and upbringing made me into. It's hard. And to parent as you do this is a mindf**k because you are always fighting the fear that you have inadvertently signed your kids up for the same fate. You want to make better choices for them without overcorrecting plus you just don't know to what degree your essential you-ness might render your choices beside the point.

I wish him well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel sort of bad for Harry. I think he still is not living the sort of life he really wants to live. I mean, many people are not I guess but it is sort of painful to watch him bump around trying to find a purpose and be his own person on this international stage (whether he wants it or not.)

Do you think he’d rather be running around England cutting ribbons?

It’s a big world. My post meant to imply that he wasn’t happy with either cutting ribbons in England as Will’s employee or being stuck in California in a house he can’t afford and estranged from his family and his wife burning bridges left and right.

Personally, I feel like he would have been happiest living in Africa part time and with Chelsy.

Harry, like all of us, will always have scenarios that "would have been better" for him. Now he needs to put the royals aside, have whatever simplistic relationship with his father that he can (personally I think he should close that door too, but Harry seems to want to stay in touch with his father), focus on life with his new family anywhere else in the world except the UK.

TL;DR. Harry should accept that no good is coming out of his attempts to interact with London.

00:16 and I agree with you. I think the fundamental problem is that no matter how much Harry wants to evolve as a person beyond his role in the BRF and no matter how correct he is on an individual level that evolving in this way is the best thing for him and his wife and children, his dad and brother and the rest of the family will never see it that way. They live inside that bubble and are fully committed to preserving it and Harry's efforts to pop it or change it to accommodate his individual needs will never be seen as anything other than fundamentally selfish.

As an American you is not a royalist and who has also dealt with a lot of family BS I see Harry's side well. But I don't think his family can see it AT ALL. To them his is simply insane and wrong and there's no merit to anything he is saying. So continuing to try to make them understand is just going to result in frustration for all involved.

[Anonymous]

I think they would have been ok with him going to do his own thing eventually but they are not ok, very understandably and like any family, with the public trashing. I think they were also concerned about Meghan, which made Harry very upset and was the main impetus to leaving. But as time goes on their concerns about her seem to be valid, whether Harry wants to admit it or not. He is stuck again but this time of his own making.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. What a low bar.

Isn't it, though?

[Anonymous]

Harry is more Diana's son and William is more Charles' son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they would have been ok with him going to do his own thing eventually but they are not ok, very understandably and like any family, with the public trashing. I think they were also concerned about Meghan, which made Harry very upset and was the main impetus to leaving. But as time goes on their concerns about her seem to be valid, whether Harry wants to admit it or not. He is stuck again but this time of his own making.

No, they wanted him as Williams assistant like Anne is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harry is more Diana's son and William is more Charles' son.

Charles only had an interest in William and probably little at that. Harry was probably on his own after his mom dies. I doubt Camilla was kind to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they would have been ok with him going to do his own thing eventually but they are not ok, very understandably and like any family, with the public trashing. I think they were also concerned about Meghan, which made Harry very upset and was the main impetus to leaving. But as time goes on their concerns about her seem to be valid, whether Harry wants to admit it or not. He is stuck again but this time of his own making.

I mean, if this was so accurate (no way to know) then team Harry & Meghan.

Saying "we'd be ok with you quitting this job you were born into and that explicitly sucks eventually but just not yet" to a person in their mid-to-late 30s" is weird BS gaslighting. When exactly would they have been okay with it? Would you be okay entering middle age with a job and life you hated thinking "well eventually I will be allowed to stop"?

While the way H&M have chosen to go public with a lot of this (the Oprah interview, the book) has felt melodramatic to me, at least they have stated their positions clearly and honestly. Meghan was being regularly and cruelly trashed in the press via blind items and unnamed "place sources" for a solid year+ before they chose to leave the UK. And yes there is every reason to believe these stories were, if not explicitly planted by his dad's and brother's teams, certainly tacitly permitted by them. That's some passive aggressive BS. You cannot quietly allow the press to destroy your family members and then be surprised when those family members choose to speak out directly to defend themselves. Charles himself did the same thing during his divorce from Diana (wrote a book and did a TV interview intended to reclaim the narrative).

And finally, ask yourself in what way the family was "right" about Meghan and whether that's actually a compelling argument to Harry. And not be assuming they are on the verge of divorce (that's speculation/hope on your part). If the issue was that she was too much of an outsider, well that's clearly what Harry wanted. If the issue is that she couldn't handle the lifestyle, well neither could Harry. There's really no complaints about Meghan you can't also put on Harry here which indicates to me that if there were objections to Meghan then Harry would understandable have seen those things as positives. Unless the issue was that she was black in which case: simply invalid.

Tl;Dr: a family that tried to control you to this degree is maybe not one worth trying to please because what is the prize you win for compliance? More obligation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think they would have been ok with him going to do his own thing eventually but they are not ok, very understandably and like any family, with the public trashing. I think they were also concerned about Meghan, which made Harry very upset and was the main impetus to leaving. But as time goes on their concerns about her seem to be valid, whether Harry wants to admit it or not. He is stuck again but this time of his own making.

No, they wanted him as Williams assistant like Anne is.

Now he's Meghan's assistant.