Prince Harry opened up on argument with Meghan Markle: ‘I was going to lose her’

Prince Harry has opened up about his life this week, admitting his workload and commitments often leave him feeling burned out. The Duke of Sussex said he still has “hard days” but is “schooled by the universe”. During a chat with US company BetterUp, he added that he wants to see bosses give employees time to build their “mental fitness”. Harry continued: “Some days are great, some days are really hard.

Prince Harry has opened up about his life this week, admitting his workload and commitments often leave him feeling burned out. The Duke of Sussex said he still has “hard days” but is “schooled by the universe”. During a chat with US company BetterUp, he added that he wants to see bosses give employees time to build their “mental fitness”. Harry continued: “Some days are great, some days are really hard.

“I’m always kicking myself – ‘If you’d have done this, which you know works for you, you wouldn’t be in this state now.’ “It’s work, but of all the work that’s pulled towards us, it’s the most fulfilling work – apart from being a dad.” Harry and Meghan Markle left the Royal Family life behind in 2020, and now live in California with their two children Archie and Lilibet.

The Sussexes have been a strong couple throughout their royal struggles, but Harry revealed one moment where he feared he could lose Meghan.
“I knew that if I didn’t do the therapy and fix myself that I was going to lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with.”

The Duke, who has been candid about his mental health in the past, spoke about the turning point for himself, saying: “There was a lot of learning right at the beginning of our relationship. She [Meghan] was shocked to be coming backstage of the institution of the British Royal Family.

“When she said, ‘I think you need to see someone,’ it was in reaction to an argument that we had. “And in that argument, not knowing about it, I reverted back to 12-year-old Harry. The moment I started therapy, it was probably within my second session, my therapist turned around to me and said, ‘That sounds like you’re reverting to 12-year-old Harry’.

“I felt somewhat ashamed and defensive. Like, ‘How dare you? You’re calling me a child.’ And she goes, ‘No, I’m not calling you a child. I’m expressing sympathy and empathy for you for what happened to you when you were a child. You never processed it. You were never allowed to talk about it and all of a sudden now it’s coming up in different ways as projection’.

“That was the start of a learning journey for me. I became aware that I’d been living in a bubble within this family, within this institution and I was sort of almost trapped in a thought process or a mindset.” Meghan has also spoken about her mental health, including in the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah Winfrey last March.

She explained that she got to a stage where she “just didn’t want to be alive anymore”.
Oprah said: “You’d said in a podcast that it became almost unsurvivable, and that struck me because it sounds like you were in some kind of mental trouble. What was actually going on? Almost unsurvivable sounds like there was a breaking point.”

Meghan replied: “Yeah, there was. I just didn’t see a solution. I would sit up at night, and I was just like I don’t understand how all of this is being churned out and again I wasn’t seeing it, but it’s almost worse when you feel it through the expression of my mum or my friends or them calling me crying just like ‘Meg, they’re not protecting you’.

“And I realised that it was all happening just because I was breathing. And, I was really ashamed to say it at the time, and ashamed to have to admit it, to Harry especially, because I know how much loss he suffered. “But I knew that if I didn’t say it that I would do it, and I just didn’t… I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”