To think that, peculiar position aside, nothing that particularly unusual has happened in the royal family

[Nimbostratus100]

Most family's have arguments, fallouts, bereavements, grudges, estrangements, etc. Most also have fun and love and forgiveness.

My immediate family are lovely. I couldn't ask for better sons. My relationships with my siblings are variable, I was NC with one for decades, although various life events have healed the rift somewhat at the moment. Another sibling had a total personality change and is like a stranger, no hard feelings there, but sadly the old relationship is gone. Add in cousins, step parents, aunts uncles, etc, we have drama, fights, genetic disease, even prison sentences

I would guess that at least 80% of families get on better than the royal family does, by Harry's account, but I dont think this level of problems is that unusual either.

So this is not a vote on how unreasonable I am, it is a vote on whether your family has more or less problems in it than harry is describing in his. It is really about seeing how justified he is to feel hard done by, or whether his complaints are within the range of normal

YANBU - My family has fewer issues than Harry has described in his

YABU - my family has more issues in it than Harry has described in his

My family has had far worse problems than the ones Harry describes. Really serious stuff. What is happening with Harry is that he's having a narcissistic meltdown after years of keeping his personality under some sort of control. He needs to do what the rest of the grownups do and learn to get on with it. He won't though, because his personality is getting in the way.

The leaking stories stuff is different.

But otherwise yes - it’s astonishing to me that many people can’t seem to fathom how different family members might interpret events differently. It happens all the time. Amazing that it’s apparently unheard of for so many.

Same with people being a bit snarky in the leadup to a wedding or having a major argument at a time of a family funeral. Some people must have extraordinarily even-tempered families or entirely stress-free lives to be shocked by this.

so, more than 40% of people who have voted, feel that their family situation has more problems than the royal family do, by Harry's account...

I think the only difference between this and very ordinary messy family dynamics is the global stage this is being played out on, enabled by the media/social media, and the bafflingly huge public appetite for the details (without which, of course, it wouldn't be happening so publicly, as the family argument/estrangement is being in part, at least, enabled by the cashflow generated by selling books and interviews. Would the Sussexes have been able, financially, to leave so totally, had that not been a possibility? (I know nothing about either of their private means...)

It's an interesting thought to consider what might or might not have happened if the Sussexes were unable to tell their stories (some form of legally-unremovable gagging order/Official Secrets Act equivalent), or if there were zero public interest in those stories, meaning no possibility of enormous sums for interviews, books, series etc, and also no newspapers running with stories/rumours because it simply didn't sell papers. Could they have afforded to leave anyway?

Your vote options are the other way round to your title question so your poll results may be dubious.

Very interesting question though.

yes, you are right, it wasn't very well laid out, was it. sorry

Most families have some drama or another, warring relatives, skeletons in the closet etc in one form or another. The difference is that they don’t write and promote a book about it, and they don’t have millions of people baying for their blood/next instalment/the media and the public lining up to shred them to pieces.

Harry clearly has emotional issues that need addressing but writing a book which effectively throws a grenade into his family is not the way to address it. It would take a miracle now to build a bridge again that he’s effectively bombed with this book and the tv interviews.

Sad really that it’s come to this. That poor young boy having to mourn this mother’s death in front of the international public and couldn’t feel he could cry at his own mother’s funeral while mobs of the public stood sobbing behind barriers watching. It’s all a bit sick really and no wonder he’s so messed up.

well, most of us wouldn't write a book about our families, or be of any interest to the media, but the same sort of recruiting bystanders to "your side" is quite common, though, I think. Just in a different form

I don't have an uncle with any connection to the international trafficking of underage girls for sex, as far as I'm aware.

Is that one of the things Harry is complaining about though?

Harry isn’t describing all the problems.
add in uncle Andy, the Panama papers offshore tax avoidance by Charles and the late Queen, lobbying ministers to avoid taxes on their estates, cash in carrier bags, There’s more he could have mentioned .

But he is talking about how he specifically feels hard done by, and this thread is about is he particularly hard done by, or do lots of people have a similar range of experiences within their family?

Lots of people have criminals in their family, but that doesn't necessarily impact on them personally. Harry hasn't said that ANdrews behaviour has had a negative affect on him, has he? or has he?

I must admit rolling my eyes over the dog bowl scuffle. I have 2 brothers and this wouldn't even register on the scuffleometer by their standards. They're still best mates though.

Your family aren't constantly under the microscope of the world's media (by choice or otherwise). It's absurd to make any kind of comparison.

Is he concerned about that, though? Isn't his total focus on his belief that each royal family member was giving bad stories about meghan to the press? Other than that he'd never have left.
He isn't concerned about cash donations to his father's charity becayse actually he doesn't believe his father will have done anything illegal. He likes his uncle Andrew. Etc.
Just because you view it as a problem in his family, doesn't mean he does. And therefore it doesn't affect the equilibrium of his family. It's just they inexplicably didn't adore Meghan like he does.

MissTrip

Exactly spot on

I have no idea what Harry is complaining about.

I don't pay attention to any of that nonsense.

They're all a bunch of spoiled, maladjusted sociopaths.

And people didn't have a bad word to say about the Queen, but she supposedly raised these people, so shouldn't she bear some responsibility?

I voted yanbu (based on your description of the options) because he has had a very eventful childhood (which all played out in the public eye) with divorce, his mother dying and I don't know anyone who is estranged or cut off from a sibling in my life. There are one or two divorces in my family and that's it. Also Andrew.

I've fallen out with my brother.

No sex trafficking allegations for any of the uncles so we beat them there.

This stuff happens to families all the time, but is played out in SM or at the pub, gym wherever instead of the international media.

YANBU @Nimbostratus100.

Yes exactly! There is a bit more in the mix than just run of the mill family life!

Also strange male influences such as Jimmy Saville, Lauren’s van de Poste, Lord Mountbatten and the dodgy bishop.

But even besides that I think the RF are a bit more dysfunctional than average tbh!

Partly it’s through being aristocratic; as they have time, energy and funds to be widely unfaithful and that tends to lead to multiple families.

Where it is similar though is some of the personalities involved. Although Prince Philip had his good points, he comes across as having been a bit of a bully at times. We had family friends who had three sons when I was young and they all divorced too because they copied their dad who was an overly dominant force in the family and the wives couldn’t stand it.

And it’s not as though Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward had a particularly soft place to land with their mother being Queen. But maybe she overcompensated and indulged them because she felt guilty? Who knows?

It does all explains the insecure attachment Harry has with his “damaged” dad … sins of the fathers and so on …

Loss of a parent during childhood : roughly one child in 30. Not uncommon, but neither usual.

Loss of a parent whose death is a major news event featuring nonstop coverage and commentary, even years later: really very unusual.

Same with divorce. Very common event, but usually not resulting in press interviews, endless speculation, etc.

It's not that he didn't experience run-of-the-mill problems (even dirty Uncle Andy is a not too uncommon a type) - it's the context.

People insulted his wife. His wife didn't get on with some family members. That happens among family and friends. Indeed, so does facing down family racists. I think the degree of public hatred and howling is unique, though. Most of don't endure Jeremy Clarkson calling for us to be publicly humiliated because dh had a row with his brother and wanted to get out of the family business.

I watched the first 15mins of the Netflix show and was bored stupid. What struck me was that they were describing in mind-numbing detail how they met and their first dates like it was earth shattering.

Almost everyone has a story like that and while it's special to you, you'd have to be incredibly self absorbed to think anyone else would be interested

Jesus christ it's like whack-a-mole trying to hide all these posts overflowing from the correct topic 🙄 @mnhq can anything be done?

And yes I'm expecting the predicable 'you didn't have to open it' replies, but didn't want to start YET ANOTHER thread about it