Without putting too ‘heavy’ a slant on this, I find the dynamics in their behaviour really interesting.
A young male relative in my family got involved with a slightly older woman - similar age gap as H&M. She was also drop dead gorgeous, highly intelligent, appeared very confident, forthright and very ambitious. However, she was also from a dysfunctional family and told us stories about her divorced father taking her to bars when she was around 10 where he would spend the evening chatting up women.
He was absolutely besotted by her, not helped by the fact he was going through a stage of low self esteem and lacked confidence. She led him completely by the nose. She constantly drip fed him a tale that his parents clearly preferred his sister, that they were disappointed in him, that his father felt his own career was more important than his son - none of which was true - and constantly told him he was a victim of others ambitions. She tormented him about flirtations she had with other men and how desirable they found her, then accessed his FB account, posted an alleged message from another woman, instigated a massive row about the fictional woman then told the young man that his sister had clearly done it, knowing they had previously had a very close sibling connection and that it was likely to cause irreparable damage.
For several years, his relationship with the whole family was very rocky. He blamed all of us for his issues, appeared very angry and made unfounded accusations against several relatives that were clearly words from her mouth, not his. We all resisted responding and kept quiet because any reply was twisted into a different version of the truth - she was incredibly clever with words, she certainly had a lawyer’s brain - plus no one wanted to further alienate him.
Eventually, I actually think she became bored with him. She started mixing with another group and told him he wasn’t on the same intellectual level as her!
The relief was incredible although everyone made the appropriate noises about how sad it was etc etc Once away from her influence, he blossomed. His confidence grew and he became more focussed on his future. He admitted afterwards that her need for his undivided attention meant his work suffered, his desperation to keep her happy was exhausting and that she seemed unable to accept that he could still love her and equally maintain a loving relationship with his family. Again puzzling, because she had been welcomed and included immediately.
Not in anyway suggesting that Meghan is anywhere on the same scale as this woman was, but some interesting parallels.