Great post, Osipi.
Perhaps after an affair with the bodyguard Charles just no longer gave a damn about Diana.
To make sense of this drama one has to factor in the character of the players. There is nothing in Charles' character as we know it to lend credence to the frame of a man without integrity and without a profound sense of duty, as we get via Diana's spin (which is suspect from the get-go because of her motives: self defense regarding unacceptable behavior).
IMO for Charles to view the marriage as 'irretrievably broken down' (with the gallantly offered 'us both having tried') necessitated some breaking point
for him (as a man of integrity and duty). It is interesting that he offered in that moment the uniquely legal phrase (in reference to marriage and divorce) 'irretrievably broken down', which covers adultery, intolerability, and unreasonable behavior.
Note: character and personalty are two separate issues. A personality can be quixotic and difficult, but the character is a bit more solid. A key question: what was the character of Charles and what was the character of Diana? We can suss that out easily from what we know of them both. From that knowledge one can determine which of the two might have had the more lax attitude towards personal issues of integrity and duty. Which one would have thrown caution to the wind and done what suited them rather than what duty demanded?
I also wondered about Diana's strange hypocritical behavior regarding camilla. Diana did not see the problem with her own affair with Hewitt. I'm sure Hewitt, bodyguard affairs contributed to Charles's coldness and alienation.
Something changed a man like Charles from being duty-bound to making the decision to walk away. What was it?
Diana would have us believe that Charles was never playing by the rules of the marriage game from the day of the wedding ceremony. Is that believable? For many it was at the time Diana so painted the scene, and for some it so remains (it certainly remains the go-to version for every tabloid summary story to this day, as Camilla experiences), but I find it is a scenario that does not jive with the character of the man.
The ease with which Charles' character and life of dedicated duty is trashed I find amazing, but that is rooted in a tabloid press that was playing by other rules, with an 'establishment' that disliked Charles' risqué views. Complicated forces were at play, with Diana being the unwitting tool. IMO.
I do not see what is the point of Princess Diana complaining about life, husband, camilla etc. Many women go through the same problems (without the same benefits, kudos, perks, privileges, etc) with their husbands, so what? She should have her blessings, stop tormenting the underlings and live peacefully.
She would likely never have stopped tormenting the underlings (like that characterization
) since she was very much a woman of her class. It is questionable whether she could have lived peacefully, ever. She was engaging in seriously unbalanced behavior by the time of the Panorama interview: recall that in that interview she was not just bashing Charles and then claiming (in the next breath) that she and he were a 'good team'
but she was primarily front-and-center dealing with some wicked bad press: the Hewitt disclosures, and the phone stalking case that almost had the Princess of Wales being brought up on police charges.
Good grief!
But in answer to your first sentence (underlined by me) the 'point' in all that she said publicly was to fend off tabloid disclosures of her behavior. She was defending herself. That's why she was 'complaining', that's why she took the nearest (Camilla) and threw her under the bus. It was all deflection from her. We saw that in the Panorama interview where she masterfully addressed both the Hewitt affair, and then threw a young boy under the bus for the phone stalking mess, as she then launched into her 'three in this marriage' and 'princess of hearts' and 'woe is me'. Masterful. In none of that do I see anything but the cleverest of cons. Amazing.
Agree. She thought she was untouchable.
