To think that Charles and Camila are actually an example of genuine love

[Noddyandbiggerears]

Yes of course I feel sorry for Diana. Yes I think being a royal has a huge impact. But they let young and are now still together and seemingly happy in their 70’s, despite a lot of shunning, negative press, etc.

@Dongdingdong I tend to hope that no one ends up with an unfaithful husband.

Genuine love? Nah. Charles needs someone to constantly stroke his ego and make him feel needed. Check them tampon tape transcripts out. Camilla is very desperate and needy. I actually think lady di was more mature than both of them. Their marriage would have survived if Camilla stayed away from the start. But I do think Charles and his mistress knew what they were doing from the start. Diana was just there for show.

If you're expecting 'passion' once you're both in your 70s then you're in for a lot of disappointment I'm afraid!!!

Or relief! I’m delighted the hurly burly of the chaise longue has been exchanged for the deep peace of the double bed!

@faithfulbird20 I remember Tampongate from when it came out. The most bizarre conversion ever!

It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I judge them both.

Camila for staying involved with Charles during his marriage (I know nothing about her’s so can’t possibly comment on that.

And I judge Diana for the way she behaved after the divorce. As someone who had been cheated on she would know only too well what it felt like to have your husband have an affair, and yet she shagged a married man with no thought to what she was doing.

Diana played the lovely victim far too well. Doing good,being seen with AIDS patients etc etc for the cameras and shagging married men behind the scenes.

What happened to her doesn’t justify what she did after the divorce.

And nobody can possibly know whether the marriage would have lasted. How often do people come on here when their teenagers are in relationships and say that it’s so young and it’s unlikely to last.

She was eighteen. She was unlikely to have stayed with him or even to have stayed in love with him. There’s every chance she would have had affairs anyway.

@Applesonthelawn I agree. Though I think Charles was more like her bit on the side to keep her sane from her husbands affairs. She manipulated Charles with her sob stories and he enjoyed being wanted/needed. What sort of woman sends her lover (who is getting married to another woman) cuff links with their initials entwined? Especially as a wedding gift? Also Charles giving her a bracelet was weird. It's like they planned that Charles would marry Diana to keep his image and they would carry on their affair. Also think Camilla only got more interested in Charles once she saw the public reaction to Diana.

Plus you know what they say...once the mistress becomes the wife...there's always a vacant place available.

It's like they planned that Charles would marry Diana to keep his image and they would carry on their affair.

It’s not like it, that is exactly what happened.

Well not exactly. As I understand it the affair happened quite late on in the marriage. The Crown isn’t accurate here you know.

I don’t watch the Crown.

I don't watch the Crown, can't stand that sort of thing.

I'm old and remember it first hand distinctly. It was always odd that he was going to marry this young girl, being a fuddy duddy from the age of about 12.
So obvious he planned to carry on his affair with Camilla with Diana as the wife and brood mare.
Pretty appalling whatever way you look at it.

Without wishing to sound crass, if the plan was always to marry a brood mare while carrying on with Camilla, what took him so long to get married? And why couldn't he have married a "suitable" woman who knew the score and accepted it? I would have thought the aristocracy is used to that kind of thing and even raises young women to be prepared for it, but Diana clearly wasn't; prepared for marriage, but not for this arrangement. Shouldn't have taken the future King too long to find a match who did understand the agreement and was ready for it, if they really did have that level of pre-meditation? So why was it years until he married?

Very good points PrincesNutNut - why didn't they find someone that was also openly aware of the arrangement?

Does seem abusive to choose someone recently out of school who thought she'd found love.

Maybe the fact that they would have had to present it as a love match, because that's what the people wanted, and the press/media were not as deferential and respectful as they had been in the past. The idea of "duty marriage" was already old fashioned to most people even in the 80s and the idea of the monarch having affairs not so well tolerated.

I don't understand how Diana didn't know the score.
She was in that world, she was young and naive sure, but surely someone, her gran or whoever would have said.
Or did she simply not listen ? Being young and naive.

@PrincessNutNut

Without wishing to sound crass, if the plan was always to marry a brood mare while carrying on with Camilla, what took him so long to get married? And why couldn't he have married a "suitable" woman who knew the score and accepted it? I would have thought the aristocracy is used to that kind of thing and even raises young women to be prepared for it, but Diana clearly wasn't; prepared for marriage, but not for this arrangement. Shouldn't have taken the future King too long to find a match who did understand the agreement and was ready for it, if they really did have that level of pre-meditation? So why was it years until he married?

Lord the myths about the aristocracy on the internet, women are not raised to accept adultery.

He got to an age where there was increasing pressure all round to get married. He didn’t want to give up Camilla so he married a young girl who was naive enough not to twig immediately what was going on.

He could have chosen someone older and more experienced who was happy to accept the status quo. It would have been a lot better if he had.

But he had pressure to marry someone virginal, with no past, from the right background, and there weren’t a huge number of options. It has always been said that the Queen Mother and Lady Fermoy (Diana’s grandmother) both had a hand in it.

But the QM didn’t like Diana very much, and Lady Fermoy testified against Diana’s mother in her divorce case.

the Queen Mother didn't like anyone ...

I'm sure I read this on here a while ago and always think of it when this topic arises. How would Camilla have felt if it was her daughter benong gaslit by a much older man.

I'm sure Camilla is probably a nice person but the cruel manipulation of teenaged Diana is hard to forget.

I read that Diana and Camilla did meet up for lunch as Camilla wanted to know if Diana would join them on hunts.

It's just so sad that Diana died just as she seemed to be truly happy in her own skin. It's also sad that it didn't work out with the heart surgeon.

being

But he had pressure to marry someone virginal, with no past, from the right background, and there weren’t a huge number of options.

And enough women turned him down didn’t they? Hardly like he had the pick of them..

I do feel sorry for them that they weren't allowed to marry when they first wanted to. Just a shame Diana was dragged into the mix at all as I'm sure people would have liked them both more otherwise.

It's not just him they turned down, it was the position too.
If he was Earl Charles with wealth etc but a normal private life I would think some of those girls may have weighed their choices differently.

Shouldn't have taken the future King too long to find a match who did understand the agreement and was ready for it, if they really did have that level of pre-meditation? So why was it years until he married?

He dated a string of women in the 1970s but none of the relationships worked out. Supposedly he proposed to Mountbatten's granddaughter (and therefore a distant cousin to himself) Amanda Knatchbull but she turned him down. Charles was expected to marry an upper class - preferably aristocratic - woman without a 'past' (ugh!) so his dating pool was pretty small. Diana fit the bill nicely. Or so they thought.

@Dongdingdong I tend to hope that no one ends up with an unfaithful husband.

And yet you start a thread saying that two people who broke up a marriage, deeply hurting other people in the process, are an example of “true love”? Riiiight.

I remember them trying to match him up with a few european princesses, I know with some it was an issue that they were Roman Catholic.

Even among ordinary families, there was often pressure on young people to 'settle down', without the expectation of 'true love' as an essential. Really? I got married in 1970 and don't remember that at all.