Why Is Prince Harry Marrying Meghan Markle?

Prince Harry is getting married! Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement was announced on 27^th November from the Clarence House twitter account, suggesting the announcement was made on behalf of Harry’s Dad, Prince Charles. The couple are due to be married in the spring of next year! Congratulations to the happy couple who have been in a relationship for nearly two years now …

Prince Harry’s fiancée is Meghan Markle, an American actress, probably most famous for her role as Rachel Zane in the US TV drama Suits, which she was part of since the show first started in 2011. At 36 years old, Ms Markle is slightly older than Prince Harry, and has previously been married to and divorced from film producer Trevor Engelson.

From a point-of-view of psychology, human beings are driven to get their needs met, especially unmet needs from childhood, and it is conceivable that the main place we try to get our unmet needs met is in our intimate relationships. Prince Harry of course tragically lost his mother, Princess Diana, when he was only 12 years old, and grew up essentially without the presence of a mothering figure or nurturing female. More recently, he spoke publicly about having tried to deal with the loss of his mother by ‘getting on with it’, ‘sticking his head in the sand’ and ‘not letting emotions be a part of it’, and that he later recognised that this way of coping with his grief had had a negative impact on him, both personally and professionally.

Fast forwarding to now: Prince Harry is engaged to be married – perhaps an indication that he has left some of his struggles behind him. In a recent BBC TV interview, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle talked about their relationship and their recent engagement. In this interview, the couple maintained physical contact by holding hands at all times, and seemed to respond to each other’s verbal and non-verbal cues throughout. Ms Markle, being three years Prince Harry’s senior, having been married once before, and having already established and negotiated a career in the public eye, has already had a lot of growing up to do. In this way, she represents a confident, female figure who may be perfectly placed to meet Prince Harry’s needs. Indeed, during their recent interview, she appeared very in tune with his needs, being reassuring in her words and demeanour, ‘rescuing’ him at times and gently guiding him throughout.

Similarly to suggesting that we try to meet unmet childhood needs in our intimate adult relationships, psychological theories also suggest that we may choose partners who are similar to our parents in important attributes and qualities. Ms Markle famously highlighted, that she wanted to be a ‘lady who works’ rather than a lady ‘who lunches’. In line with this, she founded her own lifestyle website, has developed a large following on social media, and became a global Ambassador to campaign for better education, food and healthcare for children around the world. This included travelling to Rwanda to aid the clean water campaign, for instance. She has proven her interest in humanitarian issues, as well as gender equality issues. This focus on humanitarian causes echoes Prince Harry’s, as well as the late Princess Diana’s passion for these causes, and may mirror some of the compassion and kindness which she was loved and admired for.

If you are suffering with any of the issues discussed in this article and would like to seek professional help then you may find our page about Mental Health problems useful.