To think Meghan Markle isn’t the problem, it’s Harry?

[WryJadeWren]

I don’t understand why Meghan is so often treated as the driving force behind everything people dislike about them, while Harry is portrayed as some helpless man who’s been led astray.

He’s a grown man with his own opinions and the ability to make his own decisions. It’s his family and presumably he has far more history with them than she does. Why is the assumption that she’s manipulated him, rather than that he has his own grievances and is doing what he wants?

You don’t have to like Meghan to recognise that Harry is responsible for his own behaviour. I actually find him more irritating, particularly the impression he gives that everyone else is responsible for his unhappiness.

AIBU to think she gets a disproportionate amount of the blame, while he gets far too much benefit of the doubt?

The intense backlash against Meghan Markle mirrors a classic family dynamic in that she has been cast as the outsider daughter-in-law everyone loves to hate.

It is a tired, misogynistic trope that completely strips Prince Harry of his own agency.
Instead of accepting that a grown man made a conscious choice to protect his wife and mental health, critics find it much easier to blame the new woman for "turning" the son against his family.

Common family dynamics on here. Happens in my family too.

ETA I do agree that they are both liars though.

I have no feelings for them either way really.I think MM has been cast as the bad guy and Harry as some sort of faultless fop. My 2 friends had a heated discussion over Harry and Wills and who was "best" ! I think its a difficult position that they are now in, as They will always be linked to their interview with OW and their disapperance to US

IMO it’s about 70/30 % with Meghan at 70%

Meghan came to UK on a hunt for a British wealthy guy (a number of friends say she stated this herself) she must have thought she’d won the jackpot.

She reeled H in - in fact she reeled in most of the population including me. I thought she’d be a wonderful addition to the RF but I now believe she was always aiming to get back to California - she kept her agent/pr etc.

I’m unsure how long they’ll stay in UK once H realises he’s not going to be welcomed back with open arms.

For all H talk of reconciliation they still haven’t done that with M’s Daddy but then he’s poor and in poor health - overall he does fit her post 2016 narrative. I expect H would like to meet Mr Markle first though!!

HaM two very foolish people who had the world at their feet and blew it!

If you go out in public, does that give people all rights over your private life?

Yes the exaggerated curtesy was in Netflix and H tried very hard to mask his mortification.

I don’t mind him and I quite like her but I just feel like it’s no one’s fault just a consequence of them getting together later in life. I don’t want to be one of those that draw comparisons but K&W literally had years to get to know each other and get kate used to what it means being married into the royal family and yes there were missteps but they seem like such a long time ago now. Whereas because M&H wanted children and they were already in their 30s they just didn’t have years and years at their disposal to get the hang of things. I also wonder if Harry was keen to get her married before she realised how much of a shitshow marrying into royalty really is - and how much you’re expected to pretty much just shut up and smile lest you be considered difficult or attention seeking.

Meghan was very quick to jettison her father, with whom she had been very close. He had some pictures done before the wedding and was very excited about it. Then the plug was was pulled. Poor Mr Markle must have been heartbroken.
I can imagine M badgering H about how she felt she had been "slighted" by the royal family. The fiasco over Charlotte's bridesmaid dress, the tiara incident. I don't think she was properly counselled and prepared for the protocols of the RF which are followed to the letter.
I think if they had just quietly gone over to the States and carved out a life for themselves, a reconciliation could have been achieved.

Instead they did that cringe inducing interview with Oprah and Harry published his whinge fest Spare book. Now they are back in Blighty and he is still whinging and moaning. He would be well advised to keep his gob shut and quietly apologise for his shitty behaviour, which played out publicly over the last months of his grandparents lives 🙄

i hate how the press treat her
particularly the daily telegraph and its readers.
i have no idea about the sun or the mirror, or even the Mail.
it is appalling.

List them. And the proof they lied.

Her dad who had “candid” photos set up and sold them to a tabloid?

I mean, I used to be close to my dad until he did some stuff.

Yes, basically piss taking. Like having to curtesy to the late Queen was akin to a ridiculous tacky dinner-show.

Well, fine. Don’t be a beg now then, walking around with your princess Di doe-eyed-butter-wouldn't-melt-look receiving bunches of flowers from the muggles.

Absolute hypocrite.

Millions and millions of dollars which is the main reason they did it.

Watch it and draw your own conclusion - he really didn't look very happy at all!

She was shown how to curtsey be Fergie just before that meeting.

I just don't understand why they are doing it after claiming they want a private life? Why say something when you don't actually mean it?
Same with the OW interview. Why say something you don't mean. it makes no sense to me.

To be fair she also compared it all to the Medieval Times show dinner in the USA. He wasn't impressed.

The hate directed at Megan is clearly orchestrated and disproportionate to who she is and what she does. I’m sure she’s not perfect and she may well be awful in some way but my god compared to some world leaders and other people with power (e.g. Musk, Zukerberg) she is not something to be worrying about. Re Harry, I’ve not a clue, never met the man and have not walked in his shoes.

I don’t think they have done enough to warrant the ridicule, vitriol, and death threats especially Meghan.

Neither side is perfect, innocent and the whole one side is good and one side is bad, putting some on a pedestal over others is ridiculous. I also don’t get why people enjoy slagging off strangers who from several grievances people have mentioned that imo are pathetically minor that you wish or hope bad on them, or is it some weird type of escapism entertainment or outlet for some.

I hear people moan about them being attention-seeking yet since the Oprah interview, I can count on one hand how many times they themselves said/done something seemingly negative publicly while they were in the States. Yet, despite them living in a different country, I would see a tabloid talking about them every week on the shelf, some “royal” drama of them having said or done something during my shopping trips since they left.

They left like people wanted, yet that isn’t enough for some and to me it’s a bit sickening to want strangers to suffer horrendously because of minor dramas that you don’t even know is true or not or is as bad as said to be, as if most people don’t have family dramas, missteps, things said that were taken out of context, misinterpretations, etc.

I do wonder if the people who detest and hate them consider that they’re funding the media to constantly put them in their faces because algorithms, clicks and likes (positive or negative), generate money for the tabloids. Surely, if you don’t care, don’t like, you don’t click on them, you scroll past, etc.

I don’t mind them. I find the hypocrisy around them specifically Meghan baffling and questionable at times. They weren’t the first royals to do an interview, a book, a business venture, etc yet that is held against them and not the others or has enough time not passed?

As long as the media can generate money from their names and images and whatever stories from “sources” as they can, they’re always going to be spoken of and I’m so glad they don’t show their kids faces especially with the way the British tabloid media treats Royal women and too many women still accept and buy into Team A vs Team B nonsense and I hope Charlotte and Lillibet will not have to deal with that when they’re older like their mothers and other female family members have.

As the saying goes, two things can be right at once. I remember people being genuinely happy for Harry and Meghan when they got together, wished them well and the majority had no interest in them beyond that. I cannot remember any overt racism as such, but the usual misogynistic media attention pitting Meghan against Catherine with Meghan being touted as a 'breathe of fresh air/saviour of the Royal Family' etc etc whixh was totally unfair. Catherine came out worse and has had some really horrible coverage in the press over the years, as did Diana (early death caused an about turn and she is now practically held up by some as a saint) and Sarah Ferguson.

Like most people, I just wished H&M well in their decision to step away from the Royal Family, thought 'good on them' and thought that would be the end of it. Everything that has happened since is entirely their own doing. Harry in particular just presents as an overindulged, privileged and truculent man-baby (now well into middle age) which to suggests that those 'men in grey suits' he hates so much did a sterling job hiding his real personality well into his 30s. He and Meghan have nothing to say of interest accept when they are banging on about how mean the Royal Family were to them and how awful life was whilst living on this salty island. All fine but they are still bloody doing it all these years later, having got what they wanted. Meghan has now been making a living of how awful her time was in the Royal family/ subsequent adjacency far longer than she was in it. Harry seems to think that he should still get privileges that most working members of the Royal Family do not get despite it being his own decision to leave. It is their hypocrisy and complete lack of insight that has been their downfall.

I am by no means a royalist but as I have become older and wiser and because I follow uk and world politics, I have grown to respect and understand soft power and I would rather this set-up than having having a president. The UK is the most divided it has ever been and very recent history shows we now vote for people based on the personality they want to play and soundbites rather than any actual beliefs or understanding of our political system.

He so dense and childish I don’t know how she tolerates him. I know there are perks because of his background, but the reality of putting up with such an unappealing knob (in how many ways, who knows). I’m not a fan of hers but kudos to her, she’s got a stronger stomach than me.

Women do get blamed for everything. I read something recently that said in greek times, shipwrecks were blamed on the call of sirens rather than the incompetence of sailors and it's so true!

I agree with the OP, I've always thought Hazza is his own person and fully capable of making his own decisions, but obviously it's the fault of the 'siren' that's distracted him and lured him to the rocks. Mental. And actually quite insulting to Harry actually

He was left hanging high and dry by HaM ( H couldn’t even be bothered to meet him) M couldn’t be bothered to go see him and get him out of Mexico.
The press duped Daddy Markle - he’d had a lot of ‘bad’ photos taken by the press so when he was promised a new set of photos would show him in a better light he jumped at the chance.
Both MaH were very well aware how the press worked - they should have protected him. He didn’t fit M’s new persona and there was no way she was having him at the wedding. She’s very determined if she’d wanted him there he would have been there!!
A red flag is when you have one member of your family at your wedding of hundreds and hundreds of people - she hadn’t even met OW or the Clooneys and they were there!

They’re both toxic, narcissistic, over entitled self serving idiots, in different ways though. They’ll divorce before long and they can bitch at each other then and leave the world alone

You believed what the media told you. Kate isn't popular with those who like authentic hardworking people. She is incredibly lazy and entitled and has been tbroughout her marriage as is her husband so in a popularity contest not dictated by the media she scores very very low.

Neither Harry or Meghan are the problem particularly, it’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor who we should be focusing on.