Prince Harry has reportedly reflected on the fight he had with wife Meghan Markle which encouraged him to go to therapy.
In his upcoming memoir, Spare, Harry candidly addressed the ups and downs throughout his relationship with Meghan, who he married in 2018. According to an excerpt shared by Us Weekly, the Duke of Sussex detailed a specific fight where he let his anger get the better of him.
“Maybe the wine went to my head. Maybe the weeks of battling the press had worn me down. For some reason, when the conversation took an unexpected turn, I became touchy,” he wrote in the book, which is slated to release on 10 January. “Then angry. Disproportionately, sloppily angry.”
The outlet reported that Harry wrote about taking something Meghan said “in the wrong way,” due to their culture differences and a language barrier. He also confessed to speaking to the Duchess of Sussex in an inappropriate way and how he felt when he realised this.
“I was also just over-sensitive that night. I thought: ‘Why’s she having a go at me?’ I snapped at her, spoke to her harshly [and] cruelly,” Harry continued. “As the words left my mouth, I could feel everything in the room come to a stop. The gravy stopped bubbling, the molecules of air stopped orbiting. Even Nina Simone seemed to pause.”
Harry went on to recall how the Suits actor walked out of the room, following the argument, prompting him to think that she disappeared for a “full 15 minutes”. He claimed that he then found her in their bedroom, where Meghan asked her husband what prompted him to behave in that way.
“She was calm, but said in a quiet, level tone that she would never stand for being spoken to like that,” he wrote. “I nodded. She wanted to know where it came from. [She asked,] ‘Where did you ever hear a man speak like that to a woman? Did you overhear adults speak that way when you were growing up?’ I cleared my throat, looked away [and responded], ‘Yes.’”
The royal then shared that his wife told him that she would not “tolerate” a husband or co-parent who yelled in the way that he did. Harry and Meghan are parents of two: Archie, four, and Lilibet, one.
“She wasn’t going to raise children in an atmosphere of anger or disrespect,” he wrote. “She laid it all out, super-clear.”
He then noted that both he and Meghan “knew” that his anger wasn’t prompted by their conversation. With that in mind, he then recalled the discussion they had about therapy and how the duchess encouraged him to go to it.
“It came from somewhere deep inside, somewhere that needed to be excavated, and it was obvious that I could use some help with the job.” he continued. “I’ve tried therapy,’ I told her. ‘Willy [Prince William] told me to go. Never found the right person.’ [It] didn’t work. ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Try again.’”
According to Us Weekly, Harry then described his brother’s thoughts about therapy and claimed that the Prince of Wales once made fun of his sibling when he was anxious.
“I was an agoraphobe. Which was nearly impossible given my public role. After one speech, which couldn’t be avoided or cancelled, and during which I’d nearly fainted, Willy came up to me backstage. Laughing,” Harry reportedly claims in Spare. “‘Harold! Look at you! You’re drenched,’” Harry explained in Spare.
In his forthcoming memoir, Harry reportedly shares another revelation about therapy and how he turned to it after a physical altercation with his brother. In an extract, reported by The Guardian, Harry writes that the fight began when William called Meghan “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”. He claims that things escalated when William grabbed him by the collar, ripped his necklace off and “knocked” him to the ground, prompting the duke fall onto the dog’s bowl with the broken pieces cutting into his back.
Harry noted that while he didn’t reach out to his spouse immediately after this fight, he did opt to make a call to his therapist. He claimed that he didn’t tell his wife about the argument until she noticed the “scrapes and bruises” on his back.
