Best advice for Harry going forward?

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I have all the same initial reactions as many others on MN regarding Harry i.e. whiner, grifter, stupid, entitled etc and it's easy to dole out the criticism.

However while I wouldn't say I have sympathy for him, as so much of his situation is of his own making, I actually do have some underlying feelings of concern for him and his future (and children).

He reminds me an awful lot of a relative of mine who is neurodiverse with a mild learning disability and a tendency to be self-absorbed with an overdeveloped victim complex - always lashing out, blaming others, seeing conspiracy where there is none etc.

Harry is clearly a damaged man, with childhood trauma and issues which continue to plague his mental health.
As with my relative, he has grown up with a support network which has probably quietly managed and enabled his passage through life, but when big outbursts happen (as have happened in our family too) everyone backs off and 'grey rocks' him until he has calmed down. Some people just give up, too exhausted by the constant drama of it all.

Write to your father about nothing in particular.

Send a postcard to the King every month, from Archie and Lilibet alternating, signed by the grandchild, or wholly written when they are able, just telling grandpa king what they did today, and sending a kiss. He could send back a similar postcard, just saying what he did one public-facing day, where everything is on record anyway and Daddy and Mummy won't have any secret info to sell, but a little link will be being made.

Finally, he needs to accept that you can't resign from your job but still expect to receive the perks you enjoyed whilst you were still in that employment. He "resigned" from being a working Royal, fine. But he shouldn't now expect to receive (armed) close protection whenever he visits the UK, unless the Home Office have Intel that suggests that it is warranted. We are not a "guns for hire" country and to suggest the PM should intervene on his behalf demonstrates a level of arrogant entitlement that is off the scale.

This is precisely it. This has always been the problem. If you watch the interviews from after “Megxit”, he talks about how “we offered to go to any Commonwealth country - we said we’d go to New Zealand, Canada…” and seems genuinely bewildered that the royal family and/or government weren’t willing to pay for him and his family to have a luxurious life abroad with full security. He talked about being “cut off financially” by his father - he was well into his thirties and wasn’t part of “The Firm” anymore, having very publicly rejected it. He apparently didn’t want the constraints of a royal role anymore, but still expected to be treated as very special and important. He’d apparently been bitter all his life about being treated as The Spare, but still seems confused when governments worldwide aren’t falling over themselves to fawn over the king’s second son who will never get near the throne.

He needs to grow up and decide whether he wants to be free of it all, or whether he actually wants the trappings and the fame - in which case, he can do the bloody work.

The main problem is I think they need money badly. Meghan’s business is probably costing more to run than it makes right now.

And if you don’t live in California I think it may not be clear just how much money it takes to own a house like that - property taxes and basic upkeep will run into possibly milllions each year.

My advice - pre this BBC interview where he’s really burnt all the bridges - would have been to use wanting the kids to experience an English school education as a reason to return to the UK for a period of time.

I bet Charles would have quietly funded a house/estate, school fees and living costs. Harry would be found a ‘job’ director of a company etc. Meghan could explore a European line for her As Ever line, or do a Pippa Middleton and get a PhD.

They could spend the school holidays going back to the US for lovely holidays etc.

I bet eventually after a period of no more tell all interviews etc they’d be back at family events like Christmas etc. Archie and Lili would have the chance to get to know their UK family.

They could then decide to have the kids go back to the US for high school or university and perhaps all go back for a period back over there embracing that part of their mixed culture family life.

I think all of this debacle is the result of Harry trying to protect his wife and children. It has always been about that .
I do think that putting his truth in books, documentaries and interviews was the right thing to do( history will not be rewritten)and Harry is actually the one being owed and apology from his family.

That said, I believe it is time to close this chapter with the UK. I appreciate that this will be extremely difficult for him( I can't imagine how I would feel being in his shoes). However, his family does not care about him and his children unless they can use him as a scapegoat or control him. It is simply fact.
Meghan seems to have understood this a long time ago and has completely moved on with her life, Harry in my view should do the same( they are obviously coming from a different place as we are talking about Harry's homeland and biological family).

It will be difficult, but he should also count his blessings as they have the potential to live a fulfilling, happy life. The UK is just not worth all of this hassle in my opinion.

He has served his country, he fought for this country, he fough and exposed the corrupt press( which will ultimately benefit even non- celebrities - see phone hacking scandals). Enough.

Let the UK keep and pay for the royals they deserve.

I think this just about nails it.

oh, AND SHUT UP

Another vote for him to shut up.

Grow up.

Touch grass.

Spend more time with his children rather in court or flying off on random faux royal tours.

Make sure he’s home for his children’s birthdays. (Apparently he’s due to miss Archie’s birthday this year - again!)

Retrain for a job that you might find interesting or fulfilling: search and rescue pilot? wildlife ranger? paramedic? physiotherapist working with veterans? Downscale to a manageable, nice middle-class lifestyle. Never have any kind of dealings with the media again. There are high-profile celebrities and politicians in America who do not have security details in their everyday lives; try living a low-key, private existence, accept you will be papped now and again, but see if it works.

If I thought Meghan were at all interested in the acting side of acting I'd advise her to try to get back into it but in a way that would surprise people, e.g. a non-glamorous, small role in something HBO-ish and highbrow or something shocking and offbeat, like Demi Moore in The Substance. Unfortunately, I don't think she is interested in acting as a skill or an art or a calling but just as a means to fame and money. Failing that I would advise her to start a small, local charity - a community kitchen, an animal rescue centre, a children's library - and be hands on, everyday involved in running it. No more grandiose, word-salady foundations, but something meaningful and concrete where she will see the difference being made. Only do publicity if it is publicity for the charity. (She would never do this, either.)

"Exposed the corrupt press" 😂😂
He seems very happy to give information to them, collaborate with the Daily Mail and talk to anyone in the press willing to listen!
I can't think of anyone less likely to challenge the press. He loves it. He lives for the clicks and headlines!
If you want celebrity, as he does, folk will comment. That's life.

Good suggestions, @EsmaCannonball . You're right, Meghan wasn't that kind of actress, but I think she's found her niche in the kind of trad wife/hostess role. She should go with that.
Harry always said he wanted to work on projects in Africa, but I think that ship has sailed.

Yep.

They both are frantically flailing about. As whatever youth and glamour they had fades quickly, making them ever less marketable.

They’ve gone from speeding away in that roadster after the wedding, dashing and with a bright future, to a couple of whiny, sour, boring middle aged professional victims.

They squandered immense wealth and privilege. Oh well.

I do think that putting his truth in books, documentaries and interviews was the right thing to do( history will not be rewritten)

Erm...some of it already has been, by those pointing out the truth rather than his truth. It isn't possible to be at Eton (false) or Klosters (true) simultaneously. He was 17 at the time of the QMs death, not a toddler and if his memory is that poor he really needs a good fact checker before putting stuff down for posterity.

There’s absolutely nothing he can do. People will pick holes in it regardless. Such has been the hatred whipped up against him.

He probably should stop with the interviews but I imagine his views of these are skewed given that his own parents individually gave explosive and infamous press interviews of their own.

It’s a bit rich for H&M to keep giving tell-all interviews when they disowned and slagged off Thomas Markle for doing it?

Oh, and if H&M can forgive the royal family for whatever it is they did, then surely they can find it in their hearts to forgive Thomas Markle too?

He's created this entire situation by going to the press/publishing and now when he realises he can't win is playing victim that he's in this situation TO THE PRESS. Sort out your family issues in private and stop with the disloyalty. He's had a dreadful time losing his mum so young but seemed to have lost his direction when he left the army. He has a lovely and loving family of his own and needs to move forward as his own man as he's burnt his bridges with the RF.

Put him in a room with straight talking Princess Anne for 10mins - she'd put him straight!

A quick Google tells me they are worth about 60 million dollars . So do they always need to be striving to make money ?
If they just lived a relatively quite life away from the press ( obviously still living the high life ) rich friends , lovely homes , great vacations etc I think that will last them and they get the calm in life they were supposed to be going after .

I agree. He's just another indolent, ungrateful, unaccountable, thick as mince, over indulged clot who did not realise how good he had it and now that he does, can't bear to admit it.

Families, rich/poor/famous/not produce these types every day and always have.
He needs to humble himself and see how lacking in dynamism he is without the Working Royal status and start to build himself up from that truth.
Unlike most who have their come to Jesus moment up in age, he has the financial means to start over .

Somebody needs to tell him: If you meet an arsehole at ten o'clock in the morning, they're an arsehole.
If you meet another arsehole ten o'clock at night; you're an arsehole.

My mother, cigarette in hand , Sunday Muu Muu on told me this after I had thrown yet another teenage Sunday Blues strop.

One has to have a sense of humour for sayings like that to penetrate, I suppose....

Work out what lifestyle you can afford on what's left of your inherited wealth. Live that lifestyle.

Get involved in whatever local causes appeal to you. Don't go for high profile media roles. Get your hands dirty and do the day to day grunt work. Turn up and do what needs doing. Forget status.

Let your children be just another child in that community.

After a while find someone - a cousin? - who will act as a bridge to your family. Thomas Markle as well as your father. Acknowledge you have hurt them and apologise.

It won't happen, though

1. STFU
2. publically apologise to your family, show true contrition
3. apologise to the British public for wasting so much taxpayers money
4. downsize: your ego’s writing cheques your body cant cash*
5. get some better therapy
6. take time to consider how to proceed
7. listen to people with more experience than you, take advice
8. stop the faux royal tours
9. STFU and stay that way (with the exception of apologies for lies)

Also, givemespanokopita has given excellent advise on numerous threads on there. Read those!

*with apologies to Top Gun!

I wrote a comment to the Mail last week. I said if it weren't for their daily briefings, the pair would have been forgotten about years ago. The Daily Mail funds their lifestyle.
They didn't publish my comment. Surprise!

The crux of the issue is that to both listen to AND heed advice, is that H first needs to be able to acknowledge that he’s not been a passenger in his own life, rather he’s been captain chaos and has arrived at a destination of his own making.

Never gonna happen. It’s everyone else’s fault bar his and his wife’s. They bring out the worst in each other. Folie a deux.

It would be impossible for either William or Harry to have escaped trauma. I think William has had such a defined role for so long that it’s easier for him to mask.

There’s absolutely nothing he can do. People will pick holes in it regardless. Such has been the hatred whipped up against him

You don't need anything whipped up in order to "pick holes" in Harry's many claims, lies and errors of judgement, @SL2924 ... you just need eyes and ears

Harry has whipped up the “hatred” against himself by his own words and deeds!