Prince William continues to love his mom, despite the years that have passed since her death.
Princess Diana and Prince Charles' relationship is again under scrutiny with the Netflix show The Crown making claims that the latter never stopped seeing Camilla Parker Bowles even after he married Diana. It also brought focus on the other issues Diana and he had, including her eating disorder. In her own words, Diana had told biographer Andrew Morton that she was so unhappy in her marriage, that she was crying most of the time.
However, she always loved children and having two sons of her own made her happy, even if it was a temporary respite from the deep well of sadness. Unfortunately, for a short time, Charles had reportedly manipulated his own children against their mom.
"Once, (some years later) William and I were in the swimming pool at Highgrove and I was telling him off, and William turned around to me and said, 'You’re the most selfish woman I’ve ever met. All you do is think of yourself.' And I was so stunned. I mean, this is seven years ago (in 1985, when William was three)," Diana said in a recording to Morton. The young mom knew that her toddler won't speak to her like that unless he picked it up from someone else. "I said, 'Where did you hear that?' 'Oh, I’ve often heard Papa saying it.' The one thing I’ve always prided myself on — if I may be so bold — is that I’ve never been a selfish person. But Charles was always telling me I was being selfish, and I sort of believed it," Diana added, as per Daily Mail.
This was only one of the ways Charles broke her heart. "I had so many dreams as a young girl that I wanted and hoped — this, that and the other, that my husband would look after me. He would be a father figure and he’d support me, encourage me, say, 'Well done,' or 'No, it wasn’t good enough.' But I didn’t get any of that. I couldn’t believe it. I got none of that. It was role reversal. He ignores me everywhere. Ignored everywhere, and have been for a long time," she added.
Unfortunately, Charles' heart was set elsewhere, and being with Diana made him just as unhappy. He was forced into the marriage with Diana, who was much younger than him, to be dutiful towards his royal family. Eventually, they were able to break out of the shackles but not before it brought great unhappiness to the Princess of Wales.
She was so sad at Charles' treatment of her that she tried to end her life when she was pregnant with William. She threw herself down the stairs when she was four months pregnant just "trying" to get her husband's attention. "I had told Charles I felt so desperate and I was crying my eyes out. He said I was crying wolf. 'I’m not going to listen,' he said. 'You’re always doing this to me. I’m going riding now.'" When he returned, he dismissed her pain again and walked out the door.
It is also possible that he never gave the marriage a real chance since he had his father's approval to go back to his "bachelor habits," if it didn't work out in five years, Diana told Morton.
Despite the bad marriage, she had a good bond with her kids, Princes William and Harry, and let them have a great childhood, unlike what Charles had. Many years later, when Prince William became a father, he was asked what kind of grandmother his mom would have been to his kids.
He said she would be a "nightmare grandmother" to his kids. "She’d be a nightmare grandmother, absolute nightmare," William said in the documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, adding, "She’d love the children to bits, but she’d be an absolute nightmare. She’d come, probably at bath time, cause an amazing scene, bubbles everywhere, bathwater all over the place, and then leave." After joking, he said that she "would have been a lovely grandmother."
References:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4597634/Diana-s-tapes-reveal-suicide-bid-pregnant.html
https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/diana-our-mother-her-life-and-legacy
