You could very well be right, Veronicalambertis. It's also possible that Diana, who had a reputation for discarding people, found herself short of women who could be a mother-figure. Despite having huge empathy with Diana, I'm not blind to her numerous shortcomings. However, I wonder how many of us, if we'd had her, less than stable, background, would have made a better fist of it.

Yes Tsaritsa: Not many to be quite honest, not everyone can tolerate that kind of behavior. She discarded people i think because she felt everyone was against her and no one really understood her but at the same time, she always was complaining about being lonely. So she was confused about how she was feeling. Deep down inside she wanted to be loved and hugged, she just didn't know how to come about that't all.

Basically, from all I've read on Diana, I see a pattern in her life where she never truly learned how to have an intimate relationship. By intimate, I mean a psychological closeness and intimacy like one would have with a best friend. A relationship that has its ups and downs and good times and bad times. The unconditional "no matter what" love kind of a deep relationship.

We see this in the statement made earlier "if you leave me now you don't love me." With this in mind, I think she really saw her father's marriage to Raine as a betrayal as in her father "replacing" Diana with Raine in his affections. The solution was that Raine had to go away.

She never really learned that its possible to love more than one person at a time and that its possible to love people on different emotional levels. A best friend, a husband, a stepmother or even the love of an adoring public. With Diana, this became evident when it became fact that in order to ensure her husband's complete devotion, what was needed was to eliminate anyone else in his circle that detracted from his attention to Diana. She was notorious for sacking staff that were too close to Charles. She culled his circle of friends that had more in common with Charles than she did. Basically, she felt threatened by anyone and anything that detracted from someone "loving" her and when there was conflicts, she eliminated the source of the conflict rather than work out the conflict itself by reasoning, compromises and mature cooperation. It was a lifetime of "If you love me, you will (fill in the blank). Her relationships with people were great and glorious until, for some reason, it didn't suit Diana any longer.

Just as Diana tried to manipulate Raine Spencer out of her father's life, so did the same pattern of behavior emerge with many of Diana's relationships over her adult years. We saw this manipulation of a relationship to the extreme with Oliver Hoare. We saw this manipulation in her relationship with Haznat Khan as Diana tried to manipulate the relationship towards how she perceived it should be. This, I believe, also affected her manipulating stories to sway the press and the public. She became good at it. It was her defense mechanism against perceived betrayals and hurt.

I do believe it was the emotional turmoil that Diana experienced with her father's remarriage to Raine when Diana was 15 that deeply affected her relationships for the rest of her adult life.

:previous:

I agree and I would also add that the breakup of her parents' marriage was another factor. Although Frances intended to keep the children it didn't work out that way. When viewed from a child's eyes she "left" the family. Her father won custody but may have sunk into a depression over the situation, leaving the children's emotional needs unmet. There were a lot of unresolved issues in that family and Raine's appearance only made things worse, at least from the children's point of view.

Exactly so, Osipi, but you missed out the reason. She didn't know how to have an "intimate" relationship -and as a counselor I understand precisely what you mean by "intimate"- because she'd never experienced one being demonstrated between her role models. I believe she'd enjoyed her position of being "Daddy's little girl" and probably felt rejected when Raine was introduced. I don't see an adult woman screaming at her husband "If you leave me now you don't love me". What I do see is a small child who is watching her mother leaving without her. I think Diana 'fell in love' with each new person -male or female- who came into her life appearing to adore her. Such was her neediness and desire to be loved exclusively that it probably put too great a strain on the relationship. They may have started to pull away -something, having experienced it, she'd have been very sensitive to- causing her to reject them, lessening her own pain. The emotional damage was done long before her father married Raine.

:previous:

I can understand why Diana did the things I dislike her for. Marrying Charles was the worst thing she could have done and the marriage brought out the worst in both of them.

What a pity, she had so many good qualities and perhaps her "bad" side would have disappeared if only she had married the right person and put her insecurities to rest.

You're absolutely right. We do need to look at Diana's entire childhood and not just the appearance of Raine into the picture. Raine's appearance in the mix was a catalyst that shook the family dynamics even more than it was already shaken. Both Sarah and Diana exhibited "acting out" and developed eating disorders.

Sadly, all this resulted the need to control her relationships with anyone to assure that it continued as she perceived it should be. She never learned that this kind of behavior is actually what can cause someone to back away from the relationship or even end it and if anything seemed to be amiss in a relationship, she would be the one to eliminate the problem first rather than be "left out in the cold".

What she also didn't understand was i think is probably people did try to love her and care for her. Maybe if she would of understood that, she probably would of givin it a chance. Then again she never learned how.

Also she (Diana) never made peace within herself. She died a very disturb and a unhappy young women. So sad.

I think that as she grew older, she did mature somewhat and after the divorce, she did find her own niche and developed her own passions that she worked avidly for and was finding herself as her own person. It was an ongoing process.

Its also very possible that should Diana have lived, she would have found a stable and rewarding relationship with Dr. Khan or perhaps someone else. Sadly, she never had that chance.

To me it seems as though by the time she died Diana was, if not in a good place, at least getting there. Aside from the questionable judgment involved in her relationship with Dodi, she seemed more centred and sure of herself, less reactive and needy. That may have been an illusion, but on the surface she appeared to be in a better place than she had been around the time of the Panorama interview. Who knows if that would have lasted, but it's very sad that she never got a chance to create and settle in to a fulfilling life for herself outside her royal role.