Harry & Meghan Breaking Unspoken Rules that they’re Somehow Supposed to Understand

Have you ever spent time with a family that’s honest with each other and doesn’t get swept up in winning arguments, putting each other down, threatening violence or resorting to violence, or never speaking honestly about the obvious things going on around them — acknowledging the “elephant in the room”?

It may be something of a rarity, we’re finding out. While the rest of us have never lived the life of royalty, the dramatic and occasionally tragic story of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sheds some light on these questions. While they haven’t been through the level of intense abuse that takes place daily around the world, their story does shed light on how it can happen to anyone — which can be unspoken, hidden, and manipulated into a story with a much happier ending.

The Netflix documentary miniseries, “Harry and Meghan” showcases the couples’ experiences over the past six-and-a-half years. They’ve continued to live under the pressure of being part of the royal family, but they’re the first to go through something with this much honesty and this much exposure to how they’re being treated. That includes by the British tabloids and members of the royal family.

Are Megan and Princess Kate really feuding like the media says they are? Will the paparazzi make Harry and Meghans’ lives as miserable as it became for Lady Di? Will Harry end up in fisticuffs with his blunt big brother? What member(s) of the royal family made the racist comments about Mehgan, and about their son Archie’s skin color? Did Harry blind side his grandmother?

Another whopper may have been labelling their decision to “step back as ‘senior’ members of the British royal family” and moving to North America as “Megxit.” That was of course a play on the “Brexit” movement to pull Great Britain out of the European Union. But those spreading this character attack also wanted to put her down as a woman dominating Harry’s live. This sexist argument, along with racist comments, are age-old hatreds that, for some people, just won’t go away.

These are awful questions, and they didn’t really have to be created or dwelled upon. But the British media, and some of the news media around the world obsessively covering Harry and Meghan, are completely interlocked with what happens at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. It’s the ultimate soap opera, full of impassioned entertainment — and an effective way to sell more newspapers, magazines, TV specials, books, and online revenue streams.

Unspoken rules that keep coming back
If you listen to what Harry and Meghan are saying in all these interviews over the past two years, you hear them trying to articulate what’s not being honestly said to them by the royal family. As mentioned, Harry and Meghans’ difficult experiences have not been as dramatic and intense as physical abuse and some of the atrocities committed daily around the world, but it certainly is having great impact in their lives. Harry and Meghan will eventually move on with their own lives in the future, but for now, they’re needing to process it — no matter how painful it can be for the royal family to bear.

What unspoken rules am I talking about? Let’s look at a few.

Gaslighting. This is about “manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality,” according to Wikipedia. That can happen in various ways for Harry and Meghan. Harry calls it “institutional gaslighting,” and that’s likely referring to the bureacratic order that runs Buckingham Palace and leaks the messages out to media.

They have their own ways of getting their own juicy gossip out to the public, to throw off attention on internal problems the royal family is going through. Prince Andrew’s photo next to teenager Virginia Roberts that surfaced in 2019 is a good example of it. Queen Elizabeth II wanted the sex scandal to go away, and to some extent, it did, at least for a while. British media icons usually want to protect the queen and now the king, and might do that as analysts sharing their deep insights and perspectives — sounding like wise elders speaking to history and obvious truths. But they really want to see things stay the same, and not open up to change — as represented powerfully by Harry and Meghan and in the United Kingdom’s extensive commonwealth that is going through its own set of big changes that will take years to unravel.

But the classic experience of gaslighting can be seen in how Meghan and Harry have been treated by the family since nearly the very beginning. They’re expected to shut up and go along with it.

In any family, an individual can question his or her own sanity if they continue having lies dumped on them, as if they’d caused the problem that’s being created by the liar. It goes along very well with concerns over the psychological designation of the narcissist — the incredibly self-absorbed individual who will play whatever game he or she can to get their way. They will lie all about it, then attempt to transfer the blame onto someone else.

Meghan’s conflict with her father and half-sister, and with the racism emanating through England and other parts of the world, are examples of how devastating gaslighting can be. It’s one of the core elements of how somebody like Meghan can experience PTSD without having served in a war like her husband had done.

Unspoken rules:
1. Is there anyone you can trust?
2. Why am I being accused of being a narcissist by someone, or a group of them, who believe they’re the epicenter of the universe?
3. Can you get away from it, no matter how far away you move?

Dysfunctional families. How many families in America have a member who’s currently, or previously, been addicted to mood-altering substances? Just watch a couple episodes of George & Tammy about the famously tragic country music couple (or search for the 1962 film Days of Wine and Roses and watch Jack Lemmon destroy his in-laws’ garden in a drunken rage). These days, it’s usually a mix of drugs and alcohol that destroy their lives and take their families hostage. Their kids usually end up playing specific roles the rest of their lives. Hero, mascot, lost child and/or scapegoat, are classic roles that get played and have a whole bunch of wreckage they’ll create for their spouses and kids.

But dysfunctional families don’t have to be created by having an alcoholic father. It can come through trying to live by age-old rules and perfectionism that haven’t been realistic to live by for many years now.

Unspoken rules:
1. Don’t talk about it with anyone else outside the family.
2. Learn to read the room — the body language, the looks on their faces, the tones of their voices, the escalation of anger, and the unspoken words that should be spoken.
3. Find an extreme dysfuctional behavior that can temporarily block the pain you’re going through — find your own addictions, work ridiculously long hours, dive in and out of relationships, struggle with celebritydom, spend too much money, and the list can go on and on.

Generational conflict
Harry is 38 years old and Meghan is 41 years old. That would make them Millennials. Theirs kids, Archie and Lilibet (ages three and one) would be in Generation Alpha. But even more meaningful is the generation before their babies — Generation Z, or GenZ, and their connection to Millennials. GenZ represents teenagers in their mid-teens to adults in the late 20s. Millennials are in their late 20s until about their mid-40s. Then comes Generation X and Baby Boomers.

GenZ, and to a great extent Millennials, are known for questioning unspoken and spoken rules handed to them — similar to what boomers had done in the 1960s. At times it can seem like a bit too much sharing, but there is an emphasis on being authentic and stating their opinions as they see fit.

Let me give you an example. A 29-year old GenZer who lives with a man his age and identifies as gay while also emphasizing he/she/they gender identification (his partner is they, not he), recently shared some statistics with me that he gained from research. He claims that the LBGTQ community makes up 20% of GenZ, 8% of Millennials, 3% of GenX, and 1% of Baby Boomers. That comes from reviewing surveys, with these sexual orientation and gender identification statistics coming from how people answered survey questions over the past year.

He thinks the numbers for all four generations are actually much closer together, somewhere near the 20% mark. His point being that younger adults are “coming out the closet” more so than their elder predecessors.

Perhaps Harry and Meghan represent their own generation, Millennials, those who see the need to be honest and authentic. They have to live out what all it means in their lives as the clear and logical path for themselves — being who they really are.

Do you remember the “OK boomer” message and internet meme that went viral about three-to-four years ago? Millennials and GenZers had a lot of fun with it, and used it as a clear theme in how their parents from the GenX and mostly Boomer generations were being too “old school” about everything. Certainly, Boomers and some of GenX had been raised by the generation that lived through the Depression and WW2, but they need to let go of their advice giving, was a recurring message shared on social media.

There is a dark side to this one in America and probably every country on planet Earth. Every generation is heavily influenced by old unspoken rules about the ultimate value of youth, beauty, sexual appeal, wealth, and the power to do just about anything — no matter how you treat others. Millennials and GenZers (and years ago, Boomers and GenX) want to believe they’re living outside these unspoken norms, but they also have to live through the troubles that buying into these unspoken rules cause them.

The American population is living longer, which will be putting more pressure on Millennials and GenZers — at least those who choose to provide care for aging relatives. As for those in their 50s and 60s, there are ominous signs out there. Employers tend to cut aging workers through layoffs, outsourcing, and firings because young workers will be more profitable: able to work faster and put in longer hours for less pay, and won’t be tapping into their healthcare benefits the way workers over 50 have to do.

Perhaps it is clearly the dark side of America, well depicted through advertising, Hollywood, digital content, scammers and hucksters, and other con artists. But it’s also present in Great Britain and around the world, as the Harry and Meghan story illustrates.

It would be much better to set generational difference aside, and to work together for everybody’s benefit. Why not listen to a few stories about lessons learned from life?

Unspoken rules:
1. Old family members can be neglected and forgotten because it’s too much to deal with.
2. Young people are destroying what’s great about the USA (or Great Britain, or — fill in the blank).
3. Middle-age-and-older family and friends are just trying to tell us what to do. They need to get over it.

What are the spoken rules — or at least guidelines — that I’d rather live by?

What about emphasizing health, compassion, and emotional support? Innovation, teamwork, integrity, and economic growth? Accurate journalism and rich storytelling? Aging with dignity and grace? Coming to terms with money? Continuing education and training? Sustainability, diversity, and interconnectedness to all forms of life? Arts and entertainment, travel, sporting, and having a hell-of-a-lot-of fun?

Could these be the very best of America and the world in which we live?

Everyone gets to write their own list, but please don’t set it aside when you feel too busy, burned out, and overwhelmed. It might be the ideal time to review and update your list of rules to live by — and to be accountable for.