Romantic relationships can be great teachers, even if they do not work out in the long run. In Prince Harry’s new memoir Spare he reveals how ex-girlfriend Cressida Bonas taught him the important lesson of how to cry, and why ultimately he had to break up with her.
Harry and Bonas dated for about two years, from 2012 to 2014. It was already known that she was instrumental in getting him to open up and attend therapy. Spare reveals for the first that Bonas also helped 17 year old Harry cry over his mother’s death for the first time since Princess Diana’s funeral while the pair were on a skiing trip.
“I remember thinking: Oh, I’m crying. And saying to her: This is the first time I’ve …Cressida leaned towards me: What do you mean … first time? This is the first time I’ve been able to cry about my mum since the burial,” Harry reveals.
Harry is extremely thankful to Bonas for this. “She was the first person to help me across that barrier, to help me unleash the tears. It was cathartic, it accelerated our bond, and added an element rare in past relationships: immense gratitude,” Harry went on to say.
During that same skiing trip it also became apparent to Harry that Bonas and he were not meant to be together forever. “At some point during that ski trip I’d realized that we weren’t a match,” Harry writes. It was not because the pair did not care for each other. “There was massive affection, deep and abiding loyalty — but not love everlasting,” Harry reveals.
Shortly after the pair returned home, Harry made the difficult decision to break up with Bonas. He drove to where she was staying with a friend and broke up with her in person. Bonas never wanted the stress of royal life but cared deeply for Harry. After Harry told her his thinking she had “tears running down her cheeks.”
It was not easy for Harry to break up with her “Damn, I thought. She helped me cry. And now I’m leaving her in tears,” he wrote.