Princess Diana

[Mary R.]

Ah the irony...

Mary R.

[Mari]

Interesting topic! Keeping strictly to the original question....... Yes, the marriage would have survived assuming there was no Camilla and he had married Diana. I agree with Diana's Nanny... I think they did rewrite her earlier history! She came into a cold Marriage and a Man who had already fallen in love with someone else and had his Mistress help him hand pick a Brood Mare....young, naive, in love with him and easily guided! That is enough to make anyone appear insecure and needy. But if you look at the facts there were many things Diana did to please Charles. For instance he read all her speeches before She gave them, She changed her hair to light Blonde...I remember an article that reported her saying her Husband liked blondes...make it blonder please! She was quoted as saying to the hairdresser.     There were photos of her holding back and motioning for her Husband's hand to be shaken first. He told her She was getting too plump and this was the original cause of the dieting that went haywire. So, She tried to please him. As She said in the last tapes shown here...instinct told her something was wrong that he only visited her once every three weeks. Now, if there had been no Camilla he had a young pretty wife trying to please him and really fighting for his love....yes, I think they could have come to some type partnership that would have given them a Marriage.

I even think without Camilla in the picture Diana would have figured out how to give Charles the nurturing he needed even if She couldn't give him the older Woman Nanny version of it.

She really fought for him those first years after naively marrying into that situation. Even going public was fighting for him after She had gone to Queen EII for advice who reportedly said "Oh, Charles he's hopeless." I think Diana thought her last resort would be to make it public and then it would shame Prince Charles. She even offered to have another child.  I have known other cases that followed this exact pattern and I can tell you the Woman was definitely in love with the Husband. I followed all this when it first happened and I remember how She tried to wear clothes he liked, flirted with him and was very witty...I think She could have
made him fall in love with her....IMO of course....it all ended so tragically for her in Paris that night but for him He ended up with his Mistress and married her.   end of fairy tale. 

[CHRISinUSA]

Hmm, I must really have gotten cynical in my old age 

I have no doubt Diana thought she loved Charles - and that she really wanted to please him.  She probably went into this marriage with the best of intentions, to be sure. 

But Diana she was a 19 year old with no life experience, no real role model for healthy marraige, and probably had a young girl's image of what a fairytale love could and should be.  She wanted love for love's sake, not because Charles was necessarily the real deal.  I ask again - how many days did the two spend together before their engagement?  She didn't know the guy - I mean really know who he was and what made him tick, and what he needed from her.

And Charles was already in his 30s, and just as needy as Diana.  He had a whole other set of emotional issues.  He didn't know what Diana needed, and really didn't seem to care much. 

They just weren't going to work!

The two were simply not equipped to provide each other what was necessary to make a healthy relationship work.

[NAAOTMA]

People marry for a variety of reasons, and with a variety of levels of compatability and mutual interests. Just because two people are avid enthusiasts in the same area does not guarantee that mutual interest will make for a successful marriage. What does make for a successful marriage is both partners commited to making it work. If one person is not really interested in being a marriage partner to the other person in all that marriage entails, it won't work. It appears that Charles held the deepest part of himself back from Diana because that emotional space was already taken by Camilla in his mind and heart. Or perhaps, like his great uncle David, he simply liked nurturing and unavailalbe women that were not suitable royal marriage partners and found it easier to fall in love with them than an "available and suitable" young woman.

If Camilla Parker Bowles had never existed, and Charles had been emotionally available, the Waleses could have done well as a married couple. Certainly the huge conflicts which tore Diana to pieces and which shut Charles off even further would not have occured early on in the marriage. No Camilla all through the courtship, no Camilla at the wedding, no C&C cufflinks on the honeymoon, no Camilla photos in Charles' wallet---the list goes on and on.

I have always thought that Charles' puppyfat remark to Diana was supremely thoughtless and clueless if not cruel. Especially in light of his attraction to  Camilla. Camilla has never been a rail.  It runs in the same line as Charles having been said to loathe the habit of cigarette smoking, and there is Camillla puffing away for decades with brimming ashtrays all over her house. He initially set much higher appearance and habit standards for Diana as his fiancee and wife than he set for Camilla in his private life.

Also, since the engagement of Charles and Camilla was announced, they have been marketed to the public as a "true love forever" scenario. That conveniently airbrushes away the facts that many believe Camilla used Charles to snare Andrew Parker Bowles and that he had more than one "special" woman friend in his life during his bachelor days and also his marriage. Weren't Kanga and Camilla quite jealous of eachother? So much for the "only Camilla" spin the Prince's PR staff have been churning out since the decision was made for the Charles and Camilla to marry. This spin on the marriage of Camilla and Charles is manufactured to make that marriage seems inevitable, and in that implies that the marriage of Charles and Diana was doomed to failure.

[helenazar]

  Charles, on the other hand, could - and can - only think of himself.

To be fair, I don't think this was exactly the case, at least in Charles's own mind it wasn't. In his own mind, he made a sacrifice by marrying Diana, who really wasn't his choice for a partner. She was "suitable", so he married her for the sake of the British throne. I think he really did try to do the right thing, even though in the end he wasn't equipped to handle it and made a mess of things. But I honestly don't think he set out to deliberately hurt Diana, even though it sure seemed that way sometimes, or for things to end up the way they did.   

The two were simply not equipped to provide each other what was necessary to make a healthy relationship work.

I think this just about summarizes it, albeit in an oversimplified way. Camilla or no, those two were clearly not equipped to make that particular relationship work, period...

[ChristineM]

Helen, not for a moment would I suggest Charles set out to 'hurt' Diana.   But what planet is he on (unless Planet Charles) if he could really believe that he could enter an engagement and marriage, approved of and set up by his mistress and not cause his prospective bride - and wife - hurt?   His self-obsession appears to know no boundaries.   'Sacrfice'... sorry Helen, what an arrogant human being.   You hit the nail on the head when you wrote - 'he wasn't equipped to handle it and made a mess of things'.   

I am sorry, but all this does is serve to confirm in my mind that Charles is fundamentally flawed as a human being.

tsaria

[helenazar]

Helen, not for a moment would I suggest Charles set out to 'hurt' Diana.   But what planet is he on (unless Planet Charles) if he could really believe that he could enter an engagement and marriage, approved of and set up by his mistress and not cause his prospective bride - and wife - hurt?   His self-obsession appears to know no boundaries.   'Sacrfice'... sorry Helen, what an arrogant human being.   You hit the nail on the head when you wrote - 'he wasn't equipped to handle it and made a mess of things'.   

I am sorry, but all this does is serve to confirm in my mind that Charles is fundamentally flawed as a human being.

tsaria

Of course I am not saying that I agree with Charles, or that this is my opinion. I just think that in his own mind, Charles was trying to do the right thing. He had no clue, just as Diana had no clue. I think that basically they both were good, but deeply flawed, normal people, much like millions of couples all over the world. The fact that they were so completely and utterly mismatched contributed to the disaster that became their marriage...

[NAAOTMA]

If  Charles had really wanted to marry racy, unsuitable Camilla in the early days of their affair, he could have removed himself from the line of succession and married Miss Parker Bowles if she would of had him. He did not. Instead he decided to have his cake and eat it too if the two most recent books on Diana are to be believed.

[helenazar]

You know, everyone here is probably going to hate me for saying this, but I will anyway. In a weird way, I have a certain amount of respect for Charles (even though I think that he is often an insensitive and clueless clod - like most men :-)). The reason I have a certain amount of respect for him is this: most of the time the middle aged man will leave his middle aged not-so-good-looking wife for a younger better looking woman. In his case, he left his younger, better looking wife for a middle aged not-so-good-looking woman, whom he had loved for a long time (for whatever reasons). You must admit there has to be a certain amount of unshallowness about his character. In his position, being the heir to the throne of England that is, he could have found someone else, who was younger and better looking, and who would have still done the things Camilla does for him, so you can't really tell me that it was only because Camilla "fawned" over him, or something like that. The fact that Charles was so constant to this one woman over so many years has to tell us something about his character, even if we may not like that entire situation, i.e. that it had to involve his marriage with Diana falling apart. But as far as I am concerned, Charles and Diana should not have been married in the first place, and the dumbest  thing he did during that entire scene was to agree to marry her... The rest snowballed from there.

Well, that's all, let the rotten tomatos fly! lol

[helenazar]

If  Charles had really wanted to marry racy, unsuitable Camilla in the early days of their affair, he could have removed himself from the line of succession and married Miss Parker Bowles if she would of had him. He did not.

Well, that's my whole point. He would not have done something like this because he was trying to do his "duty" instead of choosing his personal happiness. At least in his mind this must have been the case. Remember, he is not like you or I... Unlike his great uncle David who did abdicate his crown in order to marry someone "unsuitable", which was then seen as him putting his own personal happiness ahead of his duty... Either way, Charles was damned... No matter what he did.

[Grace]

I think the dumbest thing he ever did was not say goodbye on July 29, 1981, to the woman he loved but could never have, as he entered into the sanctity of marriage with someone else...

I can understand where Helen A. is coming from, but I see Charles' insistence on retaining his relationship with his 'devoted old bag' (as Camilla referred to herself) more like a child holding on to a favourite old toy or blanket years after he or she should have given it up!  It was a pretty one sided affair at that time, Camilla simply having to be drop everything and be available to suit him.  Personally, I don't admire that kind of relationship.  Perhaps things have changed a little since they married...but I'm not sure. 

[helenazar]

I think the dumbest thing he ever did was not say goodbye on July 29, 1981, to the woman he loved but could never have, as he entered into the sanctity of marriage with someone else...

I can understand where Helen A. is coming from, but I see Charles' insistence on retaining his relationship with his 'devoted old bag' (as Camilla referred to herself) more like a child holding on to a favourite old toy or blanket years after he or she should have given it up!  It was a pretty one sided affair at that time, Camilla simply having to be drop everything and be available to suit him.  Personally, I don't admire that kind of relationship.  Perhaps things have changed a little since they married...but I'm not sure. 

But that's just it, I am not sure it was as one-sided as it seems, because as I mentioned, Charles being who he is, he could have gotten at least several women to be his "old bags", and drop everything for him. And younger and better looking women than Camilla at that... So I think there must have been more to it. There must have been something in it for Camilla too, whether we can see it and understand it or not. Also, Charles didn't have to marry Camilla in the end and risk his unpopularity with the people, and she would have stayed around anyway. But he did. So you have to at least give him credit for that. I didn't say I admire him for that (that would be a bit much, as I don't think there is all that much to admire about the man), but I do have a certain amount of respect for him, if just for the fact that he stayed with his "old bag"when he could have clearly had other choices. And please don't tell me he wouldn't have had other choices,  better choices for all intents and purposes. There is no question he would have, just due to human nature and his status alone...

[helenazar]

I think the dumbest thing he ever did was not say goodbye on July 29, 1981, to the woman he loved but could never have, as he entered into the sanctity of marriage with someone else...

Grace, what is this about? I don't think I am familiar with this story.

[Grace]

Hehehe!  You said the dumbest thing Charles ever did was to marry Diana, but I think the dumbest thing he ever did was not give Camilla up when he did marry Diana.  He could not have her so he should have got on with his marriage to Diana, instead of hanging on to something that could never be...

We need the smilies back ASAP.

[helenazar]

Hehehe!  You said the dumbest thing Charles ever did was to marry Diana, but I think the dumbest thing he ever did was not give Camilla up when he did marry Diana.  He could not have her so he should have got on with his marriage to Diana, instead of hanging on to something that could never be...

We need the smilies back ASAP.

Oh ok, I see. Yes, we need those smileys back!

But you see, IMO, even if he gave Camilla up at that time, things wouldn't have worked with Diana. They were so WRONG for each other. Very wrong... What he should have done was just marry Camilla in the first place and never marry Diana. Diana then perhaps would have had a chance to marry someone who was more right for her than Charles, and maybe could have been happier in her personal life. Maybe not, but it couldn't have been worse. But then she wouldn't have been the Princess of Wales and wouldn't have had the chance to do some of the things she did and wouldn't have had her sons...