What Meghan and Harry can Teach Us about Boundaries

Heidi is currently obsessed with watching people make bad decisions…
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex made international news this week with an Instagram post announcing their plan to step back as senior members of Britain’s royal family.
Season seven of The Crown is going to be wild.
There are dozens of reputable news sources with nuanced analyses of what this means for the Commonwealth. To be honest, I’m unqualified to offer an in-depth discussion of who owns Frogmore Cottage. However, I’m more than qualified to talk about setting personal boundaries.
What Harry and Meghan can teach us about boundaries
Meghan has been hounded by a racist agenda from the moment she and Harry stepped into the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace to announce their engagement. She’s been described as too black, too old, too divorced, too American, too pregnant, too small, too opinionated, too everything.
She didn’t fit the mold of what people imagined for the sweet redhead prince they remember mourning for his mother. Thus she was relentlessly abused in the press.
Meanwhile, Harry (we’ve been on a first name basis ever since I saw those pictures of him in Vegas) lived through the death of his mother, Princess Diana, due to the same pressure his wife and child were now facing.
So what do they do?
Do they stay quiet for the sake of the family’s reputation? Do they continue interacting at holidays with that one uncle who is an accused pedophile? Really, do they keep calm and carry on?
No, they quit.
They put their marriage, their mental health, their child and themselves above the immense familial pressure they’ve been burdened with for years. They said, “no more” and they set boundaries.
There’s a lesson there for all of us.
I don’t know where you need to set a boundary today; but if a black, 38 year-old, American divorcée can quit the British royal family and come out on top with a husband who worships her and a child that is too cute for words, then you can quit your toxic situation too.
Heidi is currently obsessed with watching people make bad decisions on TV, being a coastal elite, artificially avoiding any sign of aging, reading feminist romance novels, and getting the biggest laugh at her own expense. She has a husband, 3 kids, a dog and anxiety.