Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been married for more than six years. Their grand wedding in May 2018 was spectacular, but it didn’t take long before things started crackling. The couple left royal life two years later, and what once was a great relationship with their UK family, including Prince William and Kate Middleton, is gone today.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle married only two years after their first blind date in London. The couple quickly fell in love, and not long after, Meghan Markle decided to move to the UK to be with her boyfriend.

However, Prince Harry’s apparent overflowing love for Meghan was not only positive among his family members. Prince William urged his brother to take it slow—and according to one royal author, it was because he felt something was wrong.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s love story goes back many years. Meghan Markle’s friend set up a date for the couple in 2016.

Prince Harry & Meghan Markle
In their Netflix series Harry & Meghan, the now Duchess described how she was in London for the Wimbledon tennis tournament in 2016 when she and Harry initially made plans to meet.

They scheduled a dinner, though things could have gotten off to a better start. Harry and Meghan were to meet at the Soho House in London, but the actress was forced to wait on her date for 30 minutes as Harry was running late.

“I couldn’t understand why he would be late,” Meghan said in the series. “But he kept texting. He was like, ‘I’m in traffic. I’m so sorry.’”

“I was panicking, I was freaking out,” Harry added. “I was, like, sweatin’.”

Once Harry walked into the restaurant, though, Meghan quickly realized his being late wasn’t part of any tactic or plan.

“I was a hot, sweaty, red ball of mess,” Harry recalled.

“You were just so sweet,” Meghan added. “You were genuinely so embarrassed and late.”

The first date, which Meghan said was “refreshingly fun,” lasted about an hour. The next day, the couple met again – coincidentally, Meghan was five minutes late.

Prince Harry revealed first big fight with Meghan Markle in his book ‘Spare’
By all accounts, Harry was over the moon when he started dating Meghan.

A friend who appeared in the couple’s documentary explained how happy and excited the prince was. Meghan, meanwhile, described how she and Harry shared a special connection from the beginning. Though their relationship was initially long-distance – a secret to the world – it never stopped them.

“Everything was text and FaceTime, we’d talk for hours. It felt exciting but not in the way people would assume it would be,” Meghan said. “It was just relaxed and easy.”

Harry and Meghan eventually began dating, and everything went smoothly. But just like any couple, they also had fights. In his book Spare, Harry revealed an incident in 2016 that saw him snap at his then-girlfriend.

“Maybe the wine went to my head. Maybe the weeks of battling the press had worn me down. For some reason, when the conversation took an unexpected turn, I became touchy,” Harry wrote.

“Then angry. Disproportionately, sloppily angry.”

Harry explained that Meghan took a comment he had made “the wrong way” because of their “cultural difference.” He then spoke to her “harshly” and “cruelly.”

“As the words left my mouth, I could feel everything in the room come to a stop. The gravy stopped bubbling, the molecules of air stopped orbiting. Even Nina Simone seemed to pause.”

“She would never stand for being spoken to like that”
Meghan left the room and disappeared. He recalled her being away for a “full 15 minutes,” before he found her in their bedroom.

“She was calm, but said in a quiet, level tone that she would never stand for being spoken to like that. I nodded. She wanted to know where it came from,” Harry wrote in Spare. He remembered Meghan saying:” ‘Where did you ever hear a man speak like that to a woman? Did you overhear adults speak that way when you were growing up?’ I cleared my throat, looked away [and responded], ‘Yes.’”

Meghan continued by saying she would never “tolerate” a partner or co-parent who yelled at her as he had done.

“She wasn’t going to raise children in an atmosphere of anger or disrespect. She laid it all out, super-clear,” Prince Harry wrote, noting that both he and Meghan “knew” that his anger wasn’t a result of their conversation.

“It came from somewhere deep inside, somewhere that needed to be excavated, and it was obvious that I could use some help with the job,” Harry explained.

“‘I’ve tried therapy,’ I told her. ‘Willy told me to go. Never found the right person.’ [It] didn’t work. ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Try again.’”

When Meghan Markle first met Harry, and the two started dating, the former actress was introduced to the Royal Family, including the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William. In the beginning, Meghan and William formed a great relationship, which was crucial.

Prince William & Meghan Markle – relationship
In what has been called the “Pro-Sussex” biography Finding Freedom, authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand wrote that William and Meghan got “along so well” after their first meeting.”

For her part, Meghan was nervous about meeting William for the first time. She expected her relationship with him to be “trying” from the off. According to the authors, she “thought William would no doubt want to know everything about her and her intentions.