Hi all, have been lurking for a while, and enjoying from the sidelines
but this 'blind-not-blind' really hit home - my husband used to be married to somebody very similar to MM. We got together several years after they split up (he eventually found her with somebody else), but believe me it took me years to get rid of the 'left-over' behaviours (he was scared to take anything out of the fridge without asking, can you imagine??? A man who had run a business sucessfully for years before he met her!). I had the misfortune to meet his ex several times, they had kids together, so no choice, and had years of dealings with her because of that. She was attractive, could be very charming and chatty, already had been married once when he met her, with a soppy story, so he felt like a knight in a shiny armour saving her from her past...She is a compulsive liar and master-manipulator - I use to listen to many conversations over the phone, regarding the children - and you would not believe how she would say one thing one day and then deny any knowledge of it the next, trying to twist it so he thought he must have got it wrong. While they were married she tried to separate him from his family (didn't quite succeed, fortunately) and friends. She had no long-term friends, because she tends to use people and then discard them when not needed. Anyway - have to say I had though MM might be good for Harry when it first started - I liked him, but always thought that while not particularly bright, his heart was in the right place, and he would do some good stuff with William and Kate. The alarm bells went off just before the wedding, with the whole drama about Meghan's father, and then I thought it was rather odd that she had ONLY 1 member of the family (surely she has cousins etc?), and no childhood/school/uni friends. It became clear very quickly what he got himself into - and I'm still hoping that his recent obnoxious behaviour is the result of that, and not him being a twunt. I really hope he can see it sooner rather than later, and will find the willpower to get out - because she will destroy him. It's like a trauma, the grip these people can have on you is unbelievable. And she will use Archie as leverage, it won't matter to her if it screws him up emotionally in the process, because all she cares about is me me me, and will actually convince herself she is doing her best for him.