Abstract
Conflict is a state of disagreement between people. Conflict between Princess Diana and Prince Charles led to their divorce. The paper analyses the existence of conflict between the celebrated couple. The key factors that led to conflicts between the two were stress environment, different expectations, insecurity and their different life experiences. Ineffective communication was another reason for their unhappy and troubled marriage. Effective communication, counselling, forgiving and focussing on conflict resolution could have helped them in saving their marriage.
Conflict Analysis: Divorce – Prince Charles and Princess Diana
Conflict is a state of disagreement between people. The disagreement or friction arises because people are different. They have different upbringing, cultural background, perceptions, ideologies and different goals. In all, people have a different way of seeing the world and they react differently in a given situation. As ideologies differ from person to person, the definition of right and wrong also differs. Some situations that may lead to conflict are incompatible behaviour of conflicting parties, clashing interests and expectation of performance. Ineffective and ambiguous communication is another key reason for conflicts.
Conflicts lead to unpleasant atmosphere and strained relationships. It may compel people to take extreme and unproductive decisions. It may lead to both tangible and intangible losses for the both the conflicting parties. Conflicts are also advantageous sometimes. Some positives of conflicts are that they stimulate analysis of reasons for conflict and retrospection. This analysis helps in reaching to the root cause of the issue and avoids bigger conflicts in future. Sometimes resolution of conflict brings the conflicting parties closer because they know what to expect and how to react in a similar situation in future. Hence, experiencing a conflict prepares one to better handle a similar situation in future.
Conflicts arise in personal relationships as well. It can arise due to petty issues or important life changing events. In fact, conflicts may be important for maintaining long term relationships. Conflicts can have different results in different relationships and different types of conflicts. It may either weaken or further strengthen relationships. It may lead to bitterness and resentment in some cases and increased closeness in others. Hence, conflict is an integral part of any association. The success of a relationship depends on the way conflicts are managed or contained.
Conflicts between spouses are very common. When out of control, these conflicts can lead to divorce in many cases. Divorce is the end of a marital union and is the ultimate step taken by some people to resolve long, unpleasant and unresolved conflicts. Divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana is being discussed in this paper as a case for conflict analysis.
Conflict Analysis
Personality of Conflicting Parties
The two conflicting parties here are Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Princess Diana had a royal lineage and grew up in a privileged family. According to Johnson, her parents had a divorce when she was around six. This bitter experience had a deep impact on Diana and left an emotional wound on her since childhood. Moon (2011) refers to studies done by Ahrons (2004), Hetherington et al. (1998) and Kushner (2009) which indicate that children from never divorced families exhibit fewer behaviour problems than the ones from divorced families. Diana had a visible change in her behaviour after separation of her parents. She changed from a happy child to being noticeably depressed during that period. Her custody remained with her father and she gained the title of ‘Lady’ after her grandfather’s death. Her attending the boarding school was another difficult phase of her life as that made her feel extremely lonely. After completing her studies, served as a governess for an American couple and also worked as a primary school teacher. The noble lineage enhanced the ethical values in Princess Diana and gave her a charming personality. She has a pleasant personality and possessed strong determination. However, the emotional scar of her parents’ divorce and being lonely at the boarding school had an adverse impact on her emotional development.
Prince Charles, too, had a difficult childhood. He was a sensitive child. He yearned for parental affection and suffered from health problems. He was overshadowed by the splendid personality of his elder brother. He stammered, was shy and extremely jealous of men whom is father liked. With age and his responsibilities as a king, he transformed into an impressive personality. But, he still lacked confidence and stammered during public speaking. He had, however, learnt the art of concealing his emotions in public since childhood. He appeared firm and formal like a royal descendent.
Both Prince Charles and Princess Diana had a very good public image. But their childhood emotional scars had made it difficult for them to deal with their emotions. This created conflict between the couple which was difficult to manage. Diana felt Charles was uncooperative. Even the press during that time had cast Charles as cold and insensitive towards his wife and children. Charles thought Diana was emotionally unbalanced. Diana supposedly suffered from depression and bulimia. At some point in time, these reasons contributed to the separation of the two and a formal divorce.
Prince Charles’ style of managing conflicts was to avoid them. He did not pay much attention to conflicts and hardly spent time with his family to encounter unpleasant incidences of disagreement with his wife. Princess Diana’s style of managing conflicts was a mix of avoiding, compromising and forcing. She avoided situations of conflicts by devoting time for charity work and being busy with this schedule. She was a devoted mother and compromised, at times, to save their marriage. According to People (1992), Diana played a manipulation game by showcasing herself as a devoted mother in public and publicising her desperate attempts to struggle through a literary piece ‘Diana: Her True Story’. This was to force the prince to take her seriously. Their failure to avoid and manage conflicts was one of the reasons for their break up. Smaller conflicts and misunderstandings bring more intimacy in a couple’s life and helps reduce chances of bigger fights. Since they avoided such conflicts, they found it increasingly unbearable to live together. Hence, their personality traits proved instrumental in their unhappy marriage.
Relationship between the Two Conflicting Parties
The divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana is an example of a relationship conflict. Prince Charles had known Lady Diana for quite some time before their marriage. Charles met Diana through Diana’s sister who he had dated for previously. According to Wikipedia (2012), Prince Charles took a serious interest in Diana during the summer of 1980. This was the time when Prince Charles was in his early thirties and was under tremendous pressure to marry. He was on a lookout for a wife when he met Diana in a country weekend. Their relationship grew and the prince proposed to Diana after a year. According to Wikipedia (2012), the royal wedding took place in 1981. It was an unconventional wedding because the couple did not exchange the traditional marriage vows.
Interdependence did exist between Charles and Diana. Charles needed Diana to showcase a noble wife to the public. He loved parenthood and Diana gave him two children. She was a devoted mother. Diana needed Charles for social and emotional security. However, the interdependence could not help them in maintaining a healthy relationship. Other factors overpowered and took lead.
Power distribution plays an important role during conflicts. In a relationship conflict, a change in power distribution is usually seen. A similar scenario was seen in the relationship of Princess Diana and Prince Charles. Conflicts made Princess Diana more emotional. She felt more helpless and less powerful. She felt inferior and thought she was less worthy.
There was a lack of trust in the couple’s relationship. Initially it was Diana who suspected of a relationship between Charles and Camilla and distrusted him. Diana did not trust Charles because he was never there for her. A little later their marriage, both the prince and the princess had infidelity issues. Both had extra marital affairs. Both were very open about their other relationships. Trust is the most important aspect of any relationship. In the lack of trust, a relationship gradually deteriorations and leads to the dreadful end of separation.
Factors Affecting Conflicts
Stress Factors
The immediate media attention that Lady Diana started getting, since the beginning of her courtship with Prince Charles, scared her a lot. People watching her all the time and media writing about everything she said, did and wore kept Diana under a lot of stress. The public loved Diana since the beginning and she became an icon for young ladies. It was a hard time for her dealing with this sudden public attention. Charles too envied media’s love for Diana.
According to Fraser (2012), Charles had been in line for throne longer than any heir in the history. This, coupled with the constant media watch, led to a lot of stress in his life. He was highly influenced by the Queen who played role in the major decisions of his life. As heir to the throne, he was supposed to behave in a certain way. He supposedly could not marry his girlfriend for the reasons of royalty. This became quite stressful for him at times.
Princess Diana also saw a change in behaviour of her in-laws after marriage. She was treated really well she had met them before marriage. But things changed after her marriage with Prince Charles. There was no one she could pour her heart out to. This stressed her even more.
The neglect from Charles and his family made Diana feel worthless and not good enough for Charles’ family. This was another stress factor for her.
Different Expectations
Difference in expectations was one of the key reasons for separation of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Both the parties had different expectations from marriage. The context in which Charles proposed to Diana is to be considered here. Charles decided to marry Diana in his early thirties when he had immense family pressure to get married. According to Lacroix, Charles believed that marriage and fatherhood was his first duty as the heir to the throne. Diana’s royal lineage influenced him to marry her. Hence, his expectations appeared to be more of a king’s expectation and less of a common man’s expectations of marriage.
According to Lacroix, Lady Diana grew up reading romantic love stories. She was young and had a very romantic view of marriage. She was looking for love, social security and emotional strength from marriage which is a common man’s expectation.
The incompatible expectations of the two parties led to rifts between the couple. The fights increased when Diana was pregnant and need even more emotional support. Cold shoulder from Prince Charles increased the strain in their relationship. The prince hardly spent time with the princess and kept himself outdoor to avoid conflicts at home. Their age difference also increased the incompatibility between them. Prince Charles found Princess Diana immature and emotionally imbalanced. These were the qualities Charles would have never expected and accepted in his wife. Diana accused Charles of making her feel emotionally insecure and dumb. It made Diana suffer from depression and bulimia. Hence, the fairy tale marriage ceremony did not end in a fairy tale married life for the couple.
Insecurity
According to Princess-diana.co.uk, Lady Diana was insecure about Charles’ ex-girlfriend Camilla even during their marriage. She married with a hope that things would improve. But Diana had to live with this insecurity throughout her married life. At various occasions during their marriage, Diana had felt something still brewing between Charles and Camilla. Camilla had always been a reason for their conflicts. Charles refused to let go of Camilla. According to Princess-diana.co.uk, he once said that “he refused to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress”. Camilla, in spite of her wedding with Charles’ friend, was forthcoming and made attempts to revive her relation with the prince.
According to British Broadcasting Corporation (2007), Diana had said during one of the interviews in 1995 that her marriage was crowded because there were three of them in it. Supposedly, she was referring to Camilla as the third person in their marriage. This insecurity was one of the key reasons for the conflict between the most admired Princess of Wales and Prince Charles. It led to an irreversible damage in their relationship.
Life Experiences
Lady Diana had undergone the bitter experience of her parents’ divorce at a very young age. Prince Charles suffered from neglect and health issues during his childhood. These childhood life experiences of the prince and princess had given them an emotional scar which manifested in terms of unusual behaviour from both. While Princess Diana yearned for emotional fulfilment, Prince Charles neglected his wife to be more occupied in fulfilling his responsibilities as heir to the throne.
The Role of Communication in Conflicts
The right communication is important in relationships to avoid conflicts. However, the couple lacked the art of sitting together and resolving their conflicts. In fact, they avoid communicating to each other after marriage. Lot of non-verbal cues were exchanged between the couple which were sharp and painful. Many a times Diana hurt herself to draw her husband’s attention, but failed miserably. Non-verbally, she tried communicating her desperation to Prince Charles but he did not seem to get affected. Both verbally and non-verbally he made it clear to her that such emotional tactics would not work on him. He would just go out to avoid such situations and convey the messages that he was least interested in these child-like attempts. It had an adverse impact on their relationship.
When direct verbal and non-verbal communication did not work, Diana resorted to indirectly communicating her distress to her husband. She openly spoke about her distress in media and about her need for emotional support. She was also open about her relationship with other men. By this time, even Charles had revived his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Camilla. Though they were not yet separated, it was a clear communication for both of them that they had moved on. There was no defensive or regret in any of the two.
Evaluation and Recommendation
The divorce between Prince Charles and Princess Diana seems to be a logical conclusion after analysing their behavioural traits, the reasons that let to conflicts between them and the way they handled conflicts. The strained relationship that the couple was going through was primarily because of their incompatibility, different expectations, environmental stress and insecurity. A research done by Noller et al. (2008) shows that highest level of conflicts occurs in high-conflict divorcing families. According to Gumina (2009), divorce should be communicated to children in the presence of both the parents. There should be no negative statement about spouse while breaking the news. Princess Diana belonged to one such family where she saw bitterness between her parents during divorce. There were a lot of unresolved issues between the couple which negatively impacted their married life. Instead of trying to look for a solution, the couple tried managing conflicts through avoidance or force. Both did not work well. Forgiveness plays a pivotal role in resolving issues. According to Enright and Fitzgibbons, forgiveness is an intentional process and not necessarily behaviour (Brown 2011). Both Prince Charles and Princess Diana did not resort to forgiveness. There was a lack of willingness to compromise or forgive, which worsened their relation. They did not use communication as a tool to clarify issues or make peace. In fact, at times, Princess Diana only needed to speak out her heart to somebody. Prince Charles avoided such encounters as well.
There are a few ways that could have reduced strain in the couple’s relationship. Firstly, effective communication between the two could have reduced a lot of problems. Charles could have reassured Princes Diana about his faithfulness towards her. Secondly, small issues or faults could have been overlooked or forgiven. Forgiveness brings positivity in relationships. Thirdly, the couple could have taken counselling from experts to analyse the root cause of their unhappy marriage. This could have given both of them a better understanding of self. Last but not least, they could have attempted for conflict resolution, rather than avoidance of using force.
Conclusion
Divorce between the much celebrated couple Prince Charles and Princess Diana was a logical progression of the way their relationship had shaped over the years. The relationship conflict between them had led to divorce. Both the parties had different personalities which had shaped partly from their difficult childhood experiences. The key factors that led to conflicts between the two were stress, different expectations, insecurity and their different life experiences. Lack of effective communication was another reason that further strained their relationship.
Few ways to reduce occurrence of conflicts are through effective communication, taking counselling, forgiving and focussing on conflict resolution.
References
Rohde-Brown, Juliet (2011). The Role of Forgiveness in Divorce Adjustments and the Impact of Affect. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 52 (2), 109-124
Diana Interview ‘Most Memorable’ (2007). British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6286257.stm
Fraser, John (2012). How Prince Charles Learned to Make Best of Waiting. Retrieved from http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/03/21/game-of-thrones/
Gumina, Joseph M. (2009). Communication of the Decision to Divorce. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 50 (3), 220-232
Johnson, David (n.d.). Princess Diana: A Privileged Youth, A Tragic Death. Retrieved from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/diana2.html
Lacroix, Kelly (n.d.). Diana and Attitudes to Marriage. Retrieved from http://theroyaluniverse.com/articles/contemporary-royalty/diana-attitudes-marriage/
Moon, Michelle (2011). The Effects of Divorce on Children: Married and Divorced Parents’ Perspectives. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 52 (5), 344-349
Separate Lives (1992). People, 38 (25). Retrieved from http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20109364,00.html
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (2012). FL: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana,_Princess_of_Wales
