32. Harry and Meghan Part One: A Love Story with Royal Boundaries

Mary: Let’s talk boundaries. I’m here with my sister Chime and we are discussing boundaries in pop culture. And this week did you see the royal coronation? 

Chime: Yeah. Girl. Love all that pomp and circumstance, 

Mary: So much pop and circumstance. Did you see like how many layers of clothes was King Charles wearing? 

Chime: Too many. I mean they walk at a snails pace, I think because everything’s so heavy. 

Mary: I think it’s cuz everyone wants to see ’em walk by. 

Chime: No, I think it’s cause they can’t walk any faster.

Mary: How many pounds do you think the clothes were? 

Chime: Oh good 50. 

Mary: 50 pounds?

Chime: Probably. It’s like layers of, I mean, did you see how long the train was on that? I don’t, was it a robe? I don’t know what that he was wearing.

Mary: The crown. How much does the crown weigh? 

Chime: I dunno. I mean, the size of the diamond was huge on the front of it.

Mary: Mm-hmm. So interesting. Well, one thing we noticed in this royal coronation was what’s going on with Harry? 

Chime: Oh, I know.

Mary: He, he was not dressed in Royal, regalia. He sat three rows back. Mm-hmm. Not on the balcony. And he was very much a family member sitting with the family and hanging out with his cousins and his aunts and uncles. But it brought up some questions for me, and so we decided to go back and watch the Netflix docu-series, Harry and Meghan. And what did we find Chime? 

Chime: Boundary issues. My goodness. 

Mary: So many boundary issues. 

Chime: So many, so many issues. I mean, that’s pretty much what the whole docu series is about. 

Mary: All the boundaries.

Chime: All the boundaries. 

Mary: All the boundaries. I know. So if you haven’t seen it, listeners, Harry and Meghan, if you’re looking for a Netflix series, something to binge, Harry and Meghan, go watch it. 

Chime: It’s a worthwhile binge.

Mary: For sure. It’s a little bit of the commitment. How long? 

Chime: Like six episodes? Yeah, episodes. The docu-series.

Mary: Man. And Boundaries all over the place. 

Chime: All of it. The whole thing. 

Mary: Yeah, so Chime and I are gonna talk about boundaries in pop culture, and specifically with Harry and Meghan and the Royal family. And this will be a podcast series. We’re gonna talk about the royal love story. We’re gonna talk about Harry, we’re gonna talk about Meghan, and we’re gonna talk about this family business of being royal. Mm-hmm. It’s gonna be…

Chime: So not all of us are part of a royal family, but we’re all part of a family, and I think that there are some issues that Harry and Meghan have that some of us also have similar issues when we are combining families, deciding our relationships. It’s just that theirs is on steroids and all over the media. So that’s really the main difference, but, I mean, we all can relate to the similar things that they’re going through. 

Mary: That’s right, that’s right. As I was watching the Netflix series, I was like, oh yeah, I’ve seen that in my own life. I’ve seen that in my own family. I see that with my friends. I see that with my clients. It’s so interesting. So listen up, this isn’t just about royalty, although royalty is a little bit fascinating to us. But we’re gonna talk all about boundaries. So let’s start with the love story, Harry and Meghan’s love story. Give us a little bit of a recap about how they met and fell in love.

Chime: So Harry is, you know, a young royal bachelor going to Royal Bachelor things. I guess. Meghan is working, she’s an actress working in Canada on a TV show, Suits. And she just happens to be vacationing in London and they have a mutual friend that hooks, you know, sets them up on a date. And they, I think they went on two dates and then she left. She went back and they just had a long distance phone relationship or you know, Facetime, whatever it was for several weeks. And then he is like, Hey, I’m gonna go to Botswana. Would you like to go camping with me in the middle of the African bush? And she was like, okay. Which I think is a big testament to how much she liked him, because I don’t think a lot of people on the third date would be like, yes, let’s go to the African bush together. 

Mary: And they talked about how they wanted to spend more time together in person and. That they happened to both have the same one week off. And so it was like meant to be that they could go camping in Botswana. 

Chime: Yeah. Meant to be. 

Mary: So that’s the first boundary was how they got to know each other. So when we think about boundaries and what we’re willing to participate in and we’re not willing to participate in, Harry set a boundary that he wanted to get to know Meghan privately before the rest of the world got to know them as a couple. And I think he knew that that would be important for him and for his partner, because his previous girlfriends had been driven away by the media. And so he set this kind of initial boundary around we’re gonna get to know each other privately before we announce this relationship to the world. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Interesting. So they go camping, 

Chime: Which we don’t like, most of us don’t have to do, you know, most of us don’t have to have a secret relationship. Right? So that’s definitely different from the norm. 

Mary: Right. So they choose to go camping. And they sleep in a tent. There’s no facilities. There’s no running water, there’s no restroom, there’s no people around. There’s wild animals. And Meghan talks about, at one point she said are we safe here? And Harry promised to keep her safe and she believed him. Yeah. So sweet. 

Chime: It is so sweet. Yeah. It is so sweet. 

Mary: So then they’re dating and the next boundary that comes up is this two week rule. Tell me a little bit more about this two week rule and how you’ve seen that in other relationships. 

Chime: So they’re long distance, so she’s in Canada, he’s in Britain. So it’s not just long distance. It’s really long distance. I mean, it’s different continents. So there’s a lot of logistics to getting together. In addition to the distance she is on a schedule of a TV show and filming. Right? He’s on his own schedule of all of his royal commitments. So I feel like it was pretty impressive that they set this boundary for themselves, that they’re gonna see each other every two weeks and they made it happen.

Mary: Yes. And I’ve heard of other people in long distance relationships where they have kind of an agreement with each other that this is how long we will go before we see each other in person in order to maintain and nurture our relationship. Right? I remember like Faith Hill and Tim McGraw talking about, they had, and I don’t remember the exact amount of time, but they had a certain amount of time that they agreed that they would commit to seeing each other within and other kind of couples where they’re living long distance or they have really competing schedules where they make a commitment. This is what we’re willing to participate in and we’re not going to go longer than two weeks without seeing each other. And so Harry described their courtship as, this is cute as long distance with a lot of travel where we would hunker down between car chases, disguises, fast driving, and anti surveillance.

Chime: It’s like a Bond movie.

Mary: It does sound like a James Bond movie. All right, so the next boundary I noticed was around meeting the families, which is so interesting in every couple, right? We get to decide like, when do we introduce our partners to our families, and what does that look like and what are the customs that we need to be aware of. In this situation? Oh man. 

Chime: On steroids. Like everything else.

Mary: So what did you notice around when Meghan was meeting Harry’s family and Harry was meeting Meghan’s family and where those boundaries were?

Chime: So I think when Harry met Meghan’s mom, it was pretty similar, you know, like, Hey, this is my mom. She of course, you know, was making sure that this man was okay for Meghan and it seemed like he fit the bill. You know, he was polite and nice and she was really into him. All those things. 

Mary: Yes, and I love Doria, by the way, Meghan’s mom is amazing. Doria, if you ever happen to listen to this, I love you, girl. She just seems so grounded and strong. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just so respectable. I adore her and she was a social worker in LA, so I feel a little kindred to her there.

Chime: I know she had so much integrity in the midst of all of this. 

Mary: Yes, for sure. For sure. 

Chime: Meghan had to meet Harry’s family. Right? Which, you know, had this whole other thing to it. It was kind of crazy. I mean, she said the first time that she met William and Kate, that she was just casual with Harry, so she’s cooking dinner, she’s barefoot, ripped jeans. And then William and Kate come over and she was really surprised by how formal they were. 

Mary: Yes. Yeah. Like she went to hug them and didn’t understand that that might not be like culturally okay for them, and kind of assumed that you know, behind closed doors that they would be warm and casual and she said they were not. 

Chime: Mm-hmm. I know. So that was, I’m sure, you know, just really jolting, you know, to think that it was not what she had expected. And then she also talked about the first time she met the Queen. So they were visiting London and her and Harry just happened to be at the same place that the Queen was. And so Harry said, well, come meet my Grandmother. But when you meet Harry’s grandmother, you’re also meeting the Queen of England. 

Mary: That’s right. 

Chime: So Harry was like, do you know how to curtsy? She was like, are you, is this a joke? She had to curtsy which apparently she did not do correctly.

Mary: So interesting the boundary around like this is how we engage with our family members who also happen to be the head of state. Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. I know. Okay, so they continued this courtship, right? And they announced their engagement. But before they announced their engagement publicly, they had a private engagement party. And what they chose to do for their private engagement party was animal onesies.

Chime: I know. Cute. 

Mary: So fun. And so Harry and Meghan were penguins because penguins mate for life and that was their private engagement party. And then they had this public engagement. Right? And once it was announced to the public that they were engaged, then even more boundary things started happening, right? That’s where the media became what they described as harassment, they were following Meghan, they were harassing her. And initially, Meghan’s friends and family were like so excited for her that she met this love of her life, that they were gonna get married together. And after the media became harassing, they started asking a really hard boundary question, which was, Meg, is he worth this? 

Chime: Mm-hmm. And it really, you know, you have to think what is the most important for you? You know, I think people have to choose that for their life and that’s where the boundaries come from. And she chose him, she said, yeah. 

Mary: It was intentional. Mm-hmm. Which is so interesting. Like she kind of, initially was like, I wanna participate in this relationship. I wanna marry this person I, I’m in on this relationship. And even when the media became disruptive. Right? And she had to ask herself that hard question about, is this still something I wanna participate in? She still said yes. And they talked about like in the middle of the chaos, how they would find each other and connect with just you. And that, that connection was what kept them going. 

Chime: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. 

Mary: I love it. One other thing that was kind of interesting is that Harry had to ask his grandmother permission to ask Meghan to marry him.

Chime: I know, but it wasn’t just like ask permission and wasn’t just, do you approve and if the answer’s no, it’s like, well that’s unfortunate cuz I really love this girl and I’m gonna marry her. It was do you approve? And if you say, no, I’m, I’m not allowed. You know? 

Mary: Well, I think I was actually asking for permission. Not just asking like, Hey, what do you think? Does this sound like a good idea? Are you on board with this? It was like, may I have permission to propose to marry her? Which some cultures, you know, in American culture, that’s not really customary. But in some cultures it still is. I mean, I, I know in other cultures that permission giving is very much a part of what’s expected. There are boundaries around whether or not you marry someone if you don’t have permission. Yeah. Yeah. So, interesting. Okay, so let’s talk about this royal wedding. So after the private engagement party, then they had a very, very public wedding. Over a hundred thousand people were at the wedding, or you know, in the crowd. And billions of people watched. 

Chime: I know. That’s just an obscene amount of people. Mm-hmm. 

Mary: So let’s talk about what they decided to do in terms of boundaries for their wedding. The ceremony? 

Chime: Yeah, the ceremony. A lot of it I think was very much a royal wedding, which has its own structure to it, it seemed like. But they did make some changes to personalize it. Mm-hmm. So they had a gospel choir sing. So that was pretty amazing. And then they, after the ceremony, they decided, you know, they had a reception afterwards with I think everyone that was at the wedding with cake cutting, but then they had a more intimate reception after that. Where really they could have more of the choices that they wanted for their own wedding. 

Mary: That’s right. That’s right. So, I just wanna say I loved how they really married the cultures during the ceremony, right? And that there were parts of the wedding that represented Meghan’s culture and that there were people there that represented her culture and that the royal family, and they said specifically King Charles was totally on board with that, that there was no pushback about, about the choir or about you know, the readings and the songs and the things that represented Meghan’sgan’s culture, so that I wanna give ’em some credit for, cuz that seemed really cool to me. 

And the first dance that they chose was this fun upbeat song, and I love that, that they chose to get married at Windsor Castle, so it wasn’t Westminster Abbey and they got to have a formal reception and then really their reception and that they got to choose this first dance, which was a fast song.

Chime: Mm-hmm. I know. I love that they did in the midst of all of this royal craziness, they did personalize their wedding to themselves. 

Mary: Yes. Which brings us to the speech. So this was so interesting. It’s not customary for bride in the UK to give a speech, but Meghan did speak. She gave a speech at her own wedding, and I love that she stood up and used her voice at that time and chose to set that boundary there. And I love the speech that she offered and the poem. And I do wanna kind of end here with a little bit of a sharing of the poem that she said. And it says, “When the tides were rough, they squeezed each other tighter. Nothing can break us. Now life begins. Above all, love wins.” And this idea around just like whatever world we are in, and it kind of takes us back to this agreement that they had around in the midst of the chaos, we are going to connect with each other. The rest of this is temporary. Mm-hmm. Like we are going to connect with each other. And I think that is the love story of Harry and Meghan and spoiler alert, they are going to be tested, the boundaries are going to be tested and they’re gonna continue to have to find each other in this chaos and connect with each other. And we’re gonna talk more about this in the next coming episodes. We’ll do a few in this series. So any last thoughts Chime? 

Chime: Ooh, I can’t wait to get more into it. I feel like it’s a beautiful story in that as they get tested and as more boundaries get challenged and as they have to set more boundaries, they just commit to each other and that’s really what carries them through.

Mary: That’s right. That’s sweet. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Stay tuned listeners. We’re gonna dive in and learn more all about the love story, Meghan, Harry, and the family business of the Royals.