Prince Charles ‘Couldn’t Cope’ With Princess Diana, Felt ‘Desperate’ During Marriage

His reputation suffered due to his publicized affair with Camilla Parker Bowles while he was still married to Princess Diana, but a resurfaced report indicates that Prince Charles actually gave everything he felt he could to his first marriage, and only gave up on things because he didn’t think there was anything he could so to please his wife.

In the 2005 book “The Firm,” royal author Penny Junor reexamined the couple’s contentious marriage, which ended in divorce in 1996, a year before Diana’s tragic death in Paris. While she admitted Charles’ affair wasn’t really something that could be excused, she also claimed that there wasn’t a lack of effort or caring on the Prince’s part.

“It was never the case that Charles didn’t care,” she wrote. “Couldn’t cope, yes; and as the months and then the years went by with no let-up from the unpredictability of Diana’s behavior, he became hardened and at times downright callous in his attitude towards her. He had found her a top psychiatrist, he had done what he could to appease her.”

Among the ways he reportedly tried to appease his wife were cutting out old friends she didn’t life or trust, and giving up his Labrador, Harvey because Princess Diana found him to be “smelly,” but it reportedly wasn’t enough for her, which increased Prince Charles’ animosity.

“None of this seemed to make any difference, and when she burst into tears or launched into a tantrum, nothing he could say seemed to calm her. So he gave up,” Junor wrote. “When she made dramatic gestures he walked away, when she self-harmed he walked away.”

“Not because he didn’t care but because he couldn’t help,” she added. “He felt desperate. Hopeless and guilty, and to this day he feels a terrible sense of failure for not having been able to make his marriage work.”

In the end, the couple’s marriage couldn’t hold up against their differences, or Charles’ affair. They separated in 1992, before officially signing their divorce papers four years later.