Being Mr. Meghan Markle is no honeymoon

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are finally enjoying their “honeymoon period.” Or they are according to the Duchess of Sussex, who made the statement on a fawning podcast as part of a brand building media blitz – and who certainly seems to be enjoying herself.

But has she asked her husband if he’s reveling in their belated honeymoon quite as much as she is? Once the spare to the throne, his presence as her forlorn shadow at events to honor her now appears largely surplus to requirements even to Meghan.

“That man loves me so much,” she gushed on Montecito neighbor Jamie Kern Lima’s podcast on Monday. She likened their relationship to a video game where you “slay the dragon, save the princess.” An analogy that firmly implies she is the glittering prize and he should be happy with winning her hand.

“You have to imagine, at the beginning, everyone has butterflies, and then we immediately went into the trenches together right out of the gate, six months into dating,” Meghan added. “So now, seven years later when you have a little bit of breathing space, you can just enjoy each other in a new way, and that’s why I feel like it’s more of a honeymoon period for us now.”

As ever, Meghan’s truth does not necessarily accord with everyone else’s reality.

It’s been a tough week for Harry as Mr. Meghan Markle. His wife undermined his latest warning about the dangers of social media for children by posting photos of their own children on Instagram. He bombed at the Hollywood aviation awards. And he was snubbed by Meghan at the Time100 Summit.

All while his brother Prince William looked every bit the senior statesman with world leaders at the Pope’s funeral in Rome.

Harry’s public troubles began in New York last week. While unveiling a memorial dedicated to the memory of children whose families believe harmful online behavior contributed to their deaths, he demanded stronger protection for young people from the dangers of social media. He was “grateful” that his children were still too young to be online, he said.

Too young, that is, unless Archie and Lilibet are helping Meghan promote her brands.

Meghan used their three-year-old daughter to promote her jam, or rather “preserves” as she calls them (jam has too much sugar, apparently), on social media on Sunday. She posted an Instagram Story showing her stirring her homemade strawberry preserves, saying, “What do you think Lili?” A child’s hand can be seen and a voice purporting to be Lili – but sounding strangely AI – is heard saying, “I think it’s beautiful.”

Meghan also posted Instagram pictures of Lili and son Archie, five, in her rose garden, tastefully obscuring their beautiful red hair and faces. How discrete.

Harry’s woes were compounded during his trip to New York by his wife’s apparent lack of interest in him. When he stepped out of the couple’s car at the TIME event on Wednesday, he reached out to Meghan to hold her hand. But – right in front of the waiting paparazzi – she ignored him, turned away and instead enthusiastically hugged a woman waiting to greet her.

A blushing Harry grimaced, as if he instantly knew the media would seize on it (he was correct), then awkwardly adjusted the back waistband of his trousers under his jacket and dutifully trotted through a door behind his wife as she was ushered in by staff and security. Was it take your husband to work day?

Once inside the auditorium at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Harry was forced to take a literal back seat, applauding enthusiastically from the audience as Meghan trotted out some of her signature lines, such as, “Part of what is really, really important is that love language of taking care of people also feeds me.”

Meghan, wearing a $4,000 Ralph Lauren suit, gave her soft keynote speech promoting her show, podcast, lifestyle brand and family. This marked a stark contrast with the other speakers, such as Yulia Navalnaya, who talked about fighting for human rights after her late husband, the prominent Russian opposition leader and critic of President Vladimir Putin, died in prison.

Making Harry’s recent “whining” about being stripped of his UK security details seem petty. Then Harry was off – alone – to the Living Legends of Aviation Awards, where last year he was honored for his work as an Apache helicopter pilot in Afghanistan.

From the stage at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Friday, Harry thanked the first responders who risked their lives to save those devastated by the California fires, but also took a petulant shot at organizers with a joke that didn’t land well. “I feel like I picked the short straw,” he began.

“Someone had to host a bunch of pilots and firefighters, that’s where they are, there are five tables. I agreed with the organizers that it would be a good idea, let’s get them along. I did not agree to hosting two of the tables.”

The sad contrast with William could not be more obvious, royal biographer, writer and broadcaster Hugo Vickers tells The Spectator. “One of them is doing a good job for the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. And the other’s doing nothing.”

Vickers believes Haz, as he is nicknamed by Meghan, is hanging on to his wife for dear life, “Harry is petrified of her and petrified of losing her. It is a nasty syndrome. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe they’re blissfully happy, but he doesn’t look happy.

“Now he’s just sort of dangling about in the background of Meghan’s various other things she’s promoting.”

Vickers added that the Sussex children’s appearances on Meghan’s Instagram makes them “awful pawns in the middle of this game.”

“All this gooey talk that you get from Meghan about connectivity and love and stuff doesn’t seem to extend to her own family, does it? She’s playing silly games with them. I just have a horrible feeling it’s all going to end badly somehow.”

How much longer can this go on? The old Harry, with his jack-the-lad swagger and roguish sense of humor, was hugely popular with the public, the royals and the media. His former friends, who were pushed aside when he met Meghan, miss that version of Harry. We miss that Harry.

Perhaps it is time for the prince to pack away his paranoia, apologize and start building bridges with his father, brother and the media, if it is not too late and he loses the petering goodwill toward him that still remains. That couldn’t possibly be more humiliating than this flower-sprinkled existence as Mr. Meghan Markle.