Just call me Harry. (Everything Harry & Meghan)

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That article made me feel quite special as I feel unlikely to be related to Charlemagne, Cleopatra, or Genghis Khan.
 
Hopefully at some point they will make enough millions that he can stop this. I don’t like what they are doing but I see that they do need to pay for security etc and this is what the networks really want them to talk about.

They were so critical of Meghan’s family for discussing personal/family matters with the press, and now they are discussing personal issues about Harry’s family on tv, it doesn’t come across very well. And this also won’t be doing his family’s own mental health any favours. But he doesn’t seem to care about that. It’s so sad :fragile: He and William seemed so close.
 
It’s so sad :fragile: He and William seemed so close.

I don't think heirs and spares can ever be close. At some point, they have to separate because the heir becomes the spare's boss. If the heir tells the spare "you have to eat shit" the spare has to say yes. You can't ever be close to your boss. The boundaries change too much. And so there's resentment and estrangement. It happened with every heir and spare -- William and Harry, Elizabeth and Margaret, Charles and Andrew, and it's going to happen between George and his siblings too. Just the way things go.
 
Yes, I do find it admirable that Harry is saying what he is saying. If Wills and Kate would respond, I would think more highly of them, frankly. Saying that Wills or Kate or even the Queen are showing some sort of admirable responsible restraint, while Harry and Meghan are not, is contrary to the facts as I see them. ETA: They could answer if they chose. If they choose to live within the constrictions of "the firm" that doesn't make them more responsible. Now, I don't follow the BRF's every move, but from what I see, they are all equal.

And I walked 10 miles uphill both ways barefoot in the snow to school, so I know from responsibility:lol:

Harry and Meghan may have made mistakes in their life, no doubt. So have Wills, Kate, and even Elizabeth. I just don't see one side as more responsible or classy or whatever words could be used than the other. I think they are all doing the best they can do with the life they have.

Except Andrew:(
Haven’t we all made mistakes? Celebrity or not we are all human
Without going into the merits of Harry's current approach, what he's doing in therapy (I wouldn't know) and the private lives of the BRF (I wouldn't know that either): Harry, for several years prior to meeting his wife, was involved with mental health issues in the UK through his work with his brother and sister-in-law (now under the Heads Together umbrella). It's certainly possible that he wasn't ready to deal with certain issues, or that marriage and parenthood made him aware of things he wasn't before. But the idea that people could get therapy - that he could benefit from therapy - certainly should have occurred to him.

Harry reportedly has, or at least had, a good relationship with Kate, and she actually attended therapy sessions with her brother. I am sure that she would have been happy to help Harry as well.

So basically, I don't question that Harry wasn't in a good place and needed help. I do question the current framing of his experience (or lack thereof) with therapy/mental health resources before he met Meghan.
I think mental health is very important to focus attention on.
 
They were so critical of Meghan’s family for discussing personal/family matters with the press, and now they are discussing personal issues about Harry’s family on tv, it doesn’t come across very well.
This is what I don't get, although, I don't think that Harry is doing it for the money. Of course, there's always a chance but I don't want to believe it and I think he's doing it because he thinks it's the right thing to do. (And he may not view it was talking about family/personal issues but mental health issues even though he is talking about family/personal issues). I think the ones who are doing it for the money are the networks.
 
Hopefully at some point they will make enough millions that he can stop this.
SFAIK they've got a lot of money. Harry has his money from trust funds or what not. Although Megan is not rich, she is not exactly poor, either.
 
SFAIK they've got a lot of money. Harry has his money from trust funds or what not. Although Megan is not rich, she is not exactly poor, either.
They're certainly not poor but without the Spotify and Netflix deals and some of the other things that have come along this spring, they weren't $11m estate in Montecito level rich, at least not without Harry touching a significant portion of the principal in his trust funds. I think, pre-wedding, Meghan's net worth was estimated somewhere in the $1-3m range (but I could be totally misremembering because that was 4 years ago).
 
They did the Spotify and Netflix deals for the money. Talking about Mental Health is part of the mission of their foundation. No matter how much money they do or don't have, the Foundation is not going to change its focus because the foundation is more than the two of them.
 
I am sure Harry said he needed to do these deals for money after his family cut them off. I know he has inherited a lot of money, I was just going off what I thought he said.
I also don’t think there would be much interest in him being on tv if he didn’t talk about his life in the royal family.
 
People have said he should stop talking about this in public. That is saying he should shut up. There is no way to stop talking about it without shutting up.

Not only that, but pretty much all of this concern is coming from people who never had anything nice to say about Harry or Meghan before. So it's really just concern trolling. And not even very good concern trolling since it involves a lot of projection and mind-reading.

This happens so often on FSU, when the people who said this are now the people saying that, like it's all so black and white. Is there a spread sheet or something we can access to reference each poster's comments against everything they've posted on this and similar topics? Because I don't think it's like that.

For me at least, I was a fan of Harry, sympathized about what he'd been through because I was also a big fan of Diana, was delighted at the close relationship between him and his brother and then Kate too, such a strong threesome I thought, they will really do amazing things together. I was happy when Harry found love, and I followed every detail of their wedding and birth of their first child. I also watched his brother's wedding and will always click on a link to the latest photos of their kids.

All that being said, I think things are going very, very badly for Harry and Meghan, and I think all the stuff they are saying in the media is of course damaging to his family, but more so to himself and his new family. Didn't many of us say that (we'll have to check the spreadsheet to be sure) when Meghan's father and sister were saying all this stuff in the media, that the only winners in that public war of words were the media?

I don't think he should ever shut up about mental health issues, they are very important and his personal experiences put him in a credible position to help others. So actual help others is what I'm saying - instead of continually complaining and feeding the celebrity trainwreck machine, use your experience, funding, connections and fame to do something positive. What exactly has their foundation actually done for mental health issues? Have the funded any studies or recovery programming? Provided resources for people who need it? Shared what has helped them as an example to others?

I don't think heirs and spares can ever be close. At some point, they have to separate because the heir becomes the spare's boss. If the heir tells the spare "you have to eat shit" the spare has to say yes. You can't ever be close to your boss. The boundaries change too much. And so there's resentment and estrangement. It happened with every heir and spare -- William and Harry, Elizabeth and Margaret, Charles and Andrew, and it's going to happen between George and his siblings too. Just the way things go.

Not necessarily so. Many siblings find ways to work together successfully. Before all this William and Harry pooled their resources in their charity work, Kate joining later. I had imagined that eventually, once on the the throne, Harry would be at his side as his most trusted advisor, leading his own initiatives as well.

After all, when Phil Mickelson won his somewhat miraculous second PGA Championship this weekend, 16 years after his first, it was with the support of his own brother, who caddied him to what many thought was an improbable victory.
 
I was super enthusiastic about Harry and Meghan but I think any time you see a relationship appear to isolate someone from friends and family, it is a little concerning. At the same time, I don't follow them at all outside this thread, so I have a pretty blinkered perspective on the whole thing.
 
Not necessarily so. Many siblings find ways to work together successfully. Before all this William and Harry pooled their resources in their charity work, Kate joining later. I had imagined that eventually, once on the the throne, Harry would be at his side as his most trusted advisor, leading his own initiatives as well.

After all, when Phil Mickelson won his somewhat miraculous second PGA Championship this weekend, 16 years after his first, it was with the support of his own brother, who caddied him to what many thought was an improbable victory.
Yeah but at that time William was still being eased into his role as the presumptive heir. The difference in hierarchy wasn't as obvious. I don't think the "spare" ever feels nice walking two paces behind the heir, or being told his life has less value because he won't be king. This even goes with the airplane rides. Charles and William can't be in a plane together but Charles and Harry can, because if Charles dies William has to be king, but I guess it's okay that Harry dies as well?

It happened to Bertie/George and Edward/David too, and that estrangement continued into Edward/David's abdication and exile.
Harry and William were always going to be estranged. George will be estranged from Charlotte and Louis too. Mark my words.
 
This happens so often on FSU, when the people who said this are now the people saying that, like it's all so black and white. Is there a spread sheet or something we can access to reference each poster's comments against everything they've posted on this and similar topics? Because I don't think it's like that.
I was referring to several posters in particular whose posting history I am well aware of. Sorry, no spreadsheets. ?‍♀️
 
Doesn't have to be like that. Sure there's protocol, but if they had a good relationship, which all evidence indicates until recently, they could have done it almost like a partnership. William is the public figure, but they could have defined the real roles together, just as every monarch before him has done. Outside of the pageantry of it, they build the team around them and work with them as they choose.

And maybe since Harry says he never wanted the spotlight, surely he never wanted to be king either (and was perhaps rather relieved when William's children started bumping him down the list). Not everyone wants that, there's no reason why "the spare" couldn't have been a lot more than that, contributing in his own way, with his brother, not for him.
 
It happened to Bertie/George and Edward/David too, and that estrangement continued into Edward/David's abdication and exile.
Harry and William were always going to be estranged. George will be estranged from Charlotte and Louis too. Mark my words.
It's rather simplistic to chalk up the estrangement occurred between Edward VIII and George VI as purely due to one being the heir and the other being the "spare". For starters, there were 2 more brothers and a sister who all lived into adulthood and had families. Second, Edward/David was leading quite a different lifestyle as the playboy bachelor prince through the 1920s while George/Bertie married and started a family. That, in and of itself, is going to lead to some natural separation. Furthermore, Edward VIII, once he ascended to the throne, was of increasing concern to the British government due to his Nazi sympathies. The post-abdication estrangement was, in no small part, due to Edward VIII himself and his beliefs/choices he made. His younger siblings, it should be noted, stood with George VI, out of loyalty to Crown and Country.

What's more, Elizabeth and Margaret had a very close relationship and there aren't any reports of any long-lasting rift between the two sisters, even in the aftermath of the Peter Townsend affair which, surely, would have caused one if there was ever one to be caused.
 
The history has yet to be written as to how the children of Harry and Meghan will feel about all of this. Presumably, they will never meet their maternal grandfather who seemed to play a fairly fatherly role in their mother's life up until his errors around her wedding. Their English cousins and second cousins will grow up knowing each other, playing together spending time with their great grandmother and grandfather, great aunts and uncles. Are Archie and ? fortunate to escape this or will there be a way to heal some of this so they can also feel a part?

One point I would like to make is I would never suggest anyone who is the recipient of abuse or overt neglect keep quiet about it. As a matter of fact, I worked as a family support worker using everything in my power to expose it.
 
I feel like if most people on the outside are ok with every other set of parents in the world who choose to pull away from their families for reasons that are important and deeply personal to them even if it may disrupt their kids' ability to build a relationship with the family they are distancing themselves away from, then they should be ok with Harry and Meghan making those choices for themselves and consequently, their children.
 
If I've learned anything from Downton Abbey, Belgravia, etc., it's that the whole first born son gets everything system causes an enormous number of problems on a personal level for the people involved. Siblings are literally born into inevitable diametric opposition. That's why having more than 2 kids is probably really important, so that the #2 has some siblings s/he can relate to.
 
I think it's a bit different than Downton Abbey and the like where the first born gets everything and the rest get nothing and have to a find a place to live, work, income and all that. Eventually William will have a lot more in terms of palaces etc, along with all the responsibility that goes with that, but it's not like Harry was ever going to be homeless or out of work, or wanting for money, and he already got the titles. His own grandfather was a Duke after all, and Harry already is one.

Plus while William is on a different path, at this point he's a long, long way from being king. Their futures may look different, but their presents are still very much alike, as was their early lives. And they are not kids, they are adults, so it should have been possible for them to continue to work together and forge their own paths at the same time.

This is a lot of what I don't understand about this, because the brothers did seem so very tight until very recently. It can't be just that one is destined to be king and the other likely never will be (which as I said I doubt Harry ever wanted anyway), it's got to be something else, something much deeper that has pushed them apart so badly like this.
 
I feel like if most people on the outside are ok with every other set of parents in the world who choose to pull away from their families for reasons that are important and deeply personal to them even if it may disrupt their kids' ability to build a relationship with the family they are distancing themselves away from, then they should be ok with Harry and Meghan making those choices for themselves and consequently, their children.

THIS! Some of the posts in this thread seem to veer toward implying that grandchildren exist mainly for the benefit of their grandparents and vice versa. :rolleyes: Some also mention relationships with cousins, etc., to bolster the point. But the reality is, not every extended family is particularly close, and there are various reasons for that. It's all a matter of personal choice, different personalities, geography, life commonalities, etc. It's really none of people's business. Each family is different. There is no requirement or rule for how often grandkids must see their grandparents, cousins, etc.

As to Harry and William's relationship, I don't think it's just the heir/spare thing that has driven them apart (although I do think that has inherent tensions to it). I think it's mainly the fact that William has chosen to live his life in an extremely traditional manner--and Harry hasn't. I like Kate and William, but everything they do is very traditional and exactly what is expected of them, even down to how they dress their kids. Harry chose not to live that life. It's caused a rift, and it just is what it is.

ETA: I feel like Harry/William were fine as long as Harry was playing along with what William wanted. But when Harry tried to pivot to something else, the problems began ... I do see the potential for Harry/Meghan to become isolated due to fame, notoriety, and Harry’s separation from his family. I just hope they have a good friend network to help compensate.
 
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THIS! Some of the posts in this thread seem to veer toward implying that grandchildren exist mainly for the benefit of their grandparents and vice versa. :rolleyes: Some also mention relationships with cousins, etc., to bolster the point.
I suspect a lot of those people might come from close families or wish they had.

I see lots of memes about how cousins are your first best friends and stuff like that and I just cannot relate. It's not like I had no relationship with any cousins but due to various family dynamics and tensions we kids had no control over, our interactions with our cousins on both sides of the family were very sporadic. I enjoyed getting together with them when it happened, but they weren't a big part of my life and I never felt a hole because of our lack of relationship. Our first friends were the neighborhood kids and our later friends were school friends and that was fine.
 
I suspect a lot of those people might come from close families or wish they had.

I see lots of memes about how cousins are your first best friends and stuff like that and I just cannot relate. It's not like I had no relationship with any cousins but due to various family dynamics and tensions we kids had no control over, our interactions with our cousins on both sides of the family were very sporadic. I enjoyed getting together with them when it happened, but they weren't a big part of my life and I never felt a hole because of our lack of relationship. Our first friends were the neighborhood kids and our later friends were school friends and that was fine.

A lot of this is about individualistic vs collective societies/family dynamics.

In an individualistic culture, the focus is on either yourself, or at least immediate family only. In a collective, it's a broader 'we'.

The UK, USA are quite individualistic cultures. A lot of theory around this is because they are wealthy, stable countries, people don't need (as much) the safety net of a broader family.

Whereas in other cultures that are more collective, there is a very family centric focus. A bit like you will have lunch with all your aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents every Sunday and you will enjoy it whether you like it or not lol. You might also have several generations living under one roof.

A theory is that this dynamic arises (at least at some cultural origin point) from situations where there isn't a safety net in society (access to childcare, aged care, pensions etc), so if you get into hard times, there's no one else to pull you out of it other than your family.

What I think is interesting is that the royal family is a collective family culture, positioned in a country with an individualistic society.
 
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I don't think heirs and spares can be close. Too much of a power imbalance. They can have a civil relationship but close? I doubt it. For instance, Harry knows that if William were asked to send Harry to the Tower of London to be beheaded, William would have to say yes. Obviously that's an extreme example (although it happened with Queen Mary and her little "bastard" sister Queen Elizabeth) but it speaks to the power imbalance inherent in the heir/spare relationship.

And were Elizabeth and Margaret close? They certainly weren't depicted as close on The Crown.

And I also don't think George and Charlotte and Louis can be close to Archie and the soon-to-be-on-the-way sister because of the power imbalance. Again, from an early age Archie and her sister have to curtsy and bow to George/Charlotte/Louis. That doesn't foster a good relationship. Even if they all lived in the UK there's no way the cousins could have a good relationship if everyone has to bow and curtsy to George.

That's why royalty is called the Firm right? Because family relationships are less important than the business of the crown.
 
I don't think heirs and spares can be close. Too much of a power imbalance. They can have a civil relationship but close? I doubt it. For instance, Harry knows that if William were asked to send Harry to the Tower of London to be beheaded, William would have to say yes. Obviously that's an extreme example (although it happened with Queen Mary and her little "bastard" sister Queen Elizabeth) but it speaks to the power imbalance inherent in the heir/spare relationship.

And were Elizabeth and Margaret close? They certainly weren't depicted as close on The Crown.

And I also don't think George and Charlotte and Louis can be close to Archie and the soon-to-be-on-the-way sister because of the power imbalance. Again, from an early age Archie and her sister have to curtsy and bow to George/Charlotte/Louis. That doesn't foster a good relationship. Even if they all lived in the UK there's no way the cousins could have a good relationship if everyone has to bow and curtsy to George.

That's why royalty is called the Firm right? Because family relationships are less important than the business of the crown.

Mary and Elizabeth had a good relationship they also got a long well with Edward the issues were over religion not over status.

King George VI and king Edward VIII had a good relationship too.


The tensions came because Edward basically abandoned the Crown and forced it on his brother. George wasn’t prepared to be King and he had a studder and his brother up and abandoned everything during one of the worst times in British history. George would have been thrilled to remain the spare.

Plenty of Heirs and spares do have good relationships. As for pick up poop I highly doubt Harry would be asked to do that.

Seems like William does have a good relationship with his cousins. A lot of them have been taught their whole life they won’t be a working member of the family it is what is. There are drawbacks.

And considering that they are moving away from having cousins be working members it means William Won’t be their boss.

They may not even have young kids courtesy to other kids right now. William said that they are not telling George right now that he is going to be King so it’s quite possible he is not getting courtesied to at school.

Not everyone wants to be King. Charles and Andrew have their issues but it seems like Edward has a good relationship in the family.
 
My understanding of royal protocol is you always have to bow and curtsy to the heir. Like, Charles has to bow to his mother even in their private living quarters. And so I imagine Charlotte and Louis always have to bow and curtsy to George, and Kate and Harry have to bow and curtsy to William.
I wonder if the heirs still have whipping boys.
 
My understanding of royal protocol is you always have to bow and curtsy to the heir. Like, Charles has to bow to his mother even in their private living quarters. And so I imagine Charlotte and Louis always have to bow and curtsy to George, and Kate and Harry have to bow and curtsy to William.
I wonder if the heirs still have whipping boys.
First of all it’s known that the Queen doesn’t like children being bowed to because she thinks it gives them an entitlement. The kids are not bowed to not even George.

Second I hear people with royal Higness titles don’t bow to each other.

And they also want them to be kids as long as possible.

When they are older and on state occasions Archie will be bowing on state occasions yes. So what?

Archie can look at it to ways: It’s not fair my father isn’t older and I am not the future King or

2. It’s really cool my Cousin is the King I can make all these connections but I also get to live my life however I chose.

It’s up to him.
 
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I am not so such the power imbalance matters much in the royal family. Elizabeth and Margaret were very close and regardless of different life choices, Elizabeth's love and concern for Margaret never waivered. I recall how very bereft Elizabeth was at that funeral. Often Lady Sarah Chatto is mentioned as to her close relationship with her aunt, the Queen. William, Harry and Eugenie have always been pals and had seemed to offer support to each other. Princess Ann's children have never had royal titles and I suspect they are not bowing to George and Charlotte at horse shows. How can anyone claim a family (grandmother) views personal relationships of less importance than her business? These kind of comments break my heart.
 
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