Dave and Ashley Willis Discuss Oprah Winfrey's Interview with Prince Harry & Meghan Markle

Hey, guys.

Dave and Ashley here live from the minivan, doing a little bit different kind of video this time.

As we're making this, Prince Harry and.

Meghan just did a big interview with Oprah. A lot of folks are talking about it, and we're not jumping on this kind of bandwagon of, like, let's talk about the royals, but we're trying to.

Look at what's happening in culture and.

Then bringing it back to a discussion about marriage.

What can we learn about how to have better marriages in our own lives?

And.

And we thought that Meghan and Harry.

Shared some things that can really be.

Very helpful principles for marriage, because really.

Their struggles look a little different just because they're part of the royal family. But when you break it all down.

It'S the same stuff that every couple.

Deals with just on a different kind of scale. And so we want to talk about a few of the things, and first off, just the dynamics of marrying into a family. And then when you feel like you're not well, sweetie, you just dive in. There's so much we can talk about. We'll do a few different segments.

Yes, there is. So, Oprah, one thing Oprah said was, when you marry the person, you also marry the family. And in this instance, we're talking the royal family. And not only that, but they also come from different cultural backgrounds. You know, Megan is, you know, they're technically a biracial couple. They have some different races in the mix there. And that is something that, you know, in today's age, we see a lot more of this. This is much more common to us. But in the royal family, this was not. And so that was something that. That became an issue, and it actually, like. And this was, like, groundbreaking. This was probably the big thing that's going to be in the tabloids. And it was, you know, they were talking about how when they were pregnant with their first child, how. How, you know, they were a little bit concerned with how dark is this child going to be and how hurtful, like, if that even mattered. Like, why does that even matter? And I'm sure maybe it wasn't meant that way, but that. That is so hurtful, because it's like, what does it matter what they look like? I mean, this is our child.

Well, what is particularly striking is what Megan shared with us earlier is that no one wants to admit that there's anything about race or that race has played a role in the trolling and the vitriol. And yet Megan shared with us that there was a conversation with you about Archie's skin tone.

And so that part really got me. And I thought, you know, it was really sweet. And here's the marriage point, and is that, you know, Harry, this was something that a family member, you could tell it really hurt him deeply, and he didn't want to disclose the person and throw them under the bus. But it was one of Harry's family members, obviously, and. And he told her about it because he knew this was something that would potentially be discussed, and he wanted to kind of give her the heads up. And I felt like it was very kind that Harry, you know, he's standing. He's standing up for his wife and her heritage and their child's heritage. And. And I think in families, we've got to be willing to do that. We need to. To. To. Especially with our own family, if they're saying some things that are very hurtful, we need to be able to say, hey, that's not okay.

Yeah, absolutely. We have to. And we talk about this a lot on the Naked Marriage podcast that you have to.

You have to defend your spouse, sometimes even against your own family of origin, because your first loyalty, the moment you.

Get married, your first loyalty is now to your.

To your spouse.

Right.

And. And it has to be that way.

Yeah.

And if your own family, your own parents, even within their mind, distorted as.

It may be, they think they have good intentions of protecting you.

But if they're doing something to harm your spouse or offend your spouse or come between you and your spouse, then you need to be the one to say, I'm going to protect my spouse.

They're my first loyalty, and I'm going.

To set ground rules to protect them.

And to protect our sacred family unit.

No, I mean, no, I think we've done. I'm really proud of us. You know, I'm so proud of. I'm so proud of my wife. Like, she safely delivered Archie during a period of time, which was so cruel and so mean.

So I do think that that's something that we can. We can.

We can learn. And, I mean, I actually, you know, applaud the big decisions that. That they made to say, we're going to do whatever it takes to protect.

Our marriage and our family.

Yes, because that's important.

That's important. While still trying to have a good.

Relationship with and to support the family. I mean, it's the Royals they talked about. They use different words that we. In America, we don't know what they're talking, like the institution or the firm. Like, they use all these different words, but basically saying, you know, this. This is an institution that's been going on for centuries and they want to support the queen. I mean, that's his grandmother. He wants to support her. So this isn't like he doesn't love his family or he's trying to throw his family under the bus, but, you know, this is who he loves. And we want to support our spouse. And one thing you can say to your family, if they're giving you trouble about anything, whatever it is, is their family, you know, your spouse's family heritage, the color of their skin, their opinions, whatever it is, it could be political. And we had a lot of that recently. You need to say, listen, I get it that you have your opinion, some that are very wrong. I mean, racism, my goodness. Like, we could go on for days about this, but, you know, we need to go to our family in the most loving way possible and say, this is not okay. This is who I love. And can you love her and respect her or respect him, Love him? Because I do. You may not understand them. You may have some. Some different opinions on things, but this is who I love. I need you to treat them with respect.

Yeah. And respect is the minimum requirement.

Right? I mean, exactly.

That, at least isn't being met.

If your spouse feels unsafe because of.

How they're being treated by your parents, then, you know, you might. You might need to make drastic actions, you know, if you feel unsafe or unsupported in those kind of ways. And so, yeah, you're the main lesson here. And Jimmy Evans has a great teaching on this called the Law of Priority.

In his book the Four Laws of.

Love, that the way God designed it, you know, your relationship with your spouse has to be the priority above all.

Other human relationships, including your parents, everybody else. And that's just the way God designed it. And if we get that out of.

Balance, the marriage is never going to be.

That's right.

And this is in some ways just the beginning for us. We've been through a lot. It's felt like a lifetime. A lifetime.

So your story with the prince does have a happy ending.

It does, yeah. Yeah, it really did.

It has a happy ending because you made it so.

Yeah.

Greater than any fairy tale you've ever read.

Greater than any.

So probably one of the most poignant parts of this interview with Oprah. And I could tell Oprah was surprised by this, at just how honest Megan was, but she shared that with all of the. The tabloids and the. The, you know, lack of protection. So to speak physical and emotional and reputation wise from the royal family that Megan at one point said she didn't know if she wanted to live and, and that she went to Harry with it. And actually that day they had to go to a, a big event. And he even told her, being compassionate, a compassionate husband, he said, you don't need to go to this. I mean, gosh, stay home. And she looked at him and she said, I can't be alone because I don't know what I'm going to do essentially. And it was a very poignant moment and an honest moment. And I'm glad that Meghan Markle was willing to shed some light on this because so many people, including us, I mean we went through a time when I was depressed and I had dark thoughts like that and, and I came to you with them and I, I want to commend this couple on being honest about it. I think it's great that Megan went to Harry. She didn't try to fix it on her own. She didn't try to hold it in and she shared it with her husband. And I want to commend Harry on being willing to support her in this, whatever that looked like and whatever she needed, you know, and you don't always have to have the right words to say, but I think just saying like I'm here for you, I want to do whatever I can to support you and to help you get help, you know that that's key. And I, I know one tragedy of this is that Megan did reach out for help to the family and, and being part of the Royal family, I think there's protocol and these kind of things and basically was told everybody goes through this, you know, she's kind of deal with it. And I think another reason why, you know, why kind of things are the way they are right now with, with Megan and Harry trying, you know, kind of separating themselves a little bit is because they weren't, you know, it, the family or the institution, whoever, you know, they weren't providing help when help was, was needed. And that's just, that's. That's heartbreaking.

It is.

But you have to be willing to.

Talk, which it did take courage to talk.

And you know, again, Ashley shared a lot of her testimony with this, you know, on a. Even some scale I've dealt with this, you know, from the time we got Covid and on it kind of. But the bottom line is you have.

To talk about anxieties.

You have to talk if you're dealing.

With anxiety, depression and certainly if you're.

Dealing with suicidal thoughts, you need to reach out and get help.

And one thing I thought that was really profound that Harry said that challenged me as a husband, is he made.

The comment that his primary objective for every decision he was making is the safety of my wife and family.

And he was talking about safety and being able to make enough money to.

Provide security and all this. Most of us don't have to worry about that.

We're not being chased by crazy paparazzi.

And all that, you know, but still, that same principle applies, that our primary.

Objective needs to be, I want to.

Make sure my spouse and our family is safe, that our home is a safe place, which means we're all getting the help we need. Mentally, physically, spiritually. We're all getting the help that we.

Need to be taken care of.

And we all feel secure and heard and loved.

And if those things aren't happening or.

If we feel unsafe or unsteady in any way, then we're going to drastically realign things to make sure that we.

Can have that kind of security.

And, you know, speaking about money, I know some, sometimes even our son, our oldest son, when we were watching this, he came in, he's almost 16, and he was like, I mean, how do they have problems? They have all this money, all this fame. And I'm like, sweetie, listen, there's not all the money in the world of fame, in the world that could solve, you know, any problem. In fact, it often brings more problems on you. And I know some people watching this, you're probably like, oh, goodness gracious.

Hey.

I mean, Biggie was right. More money, more problems.

More money, more problems. Right? And it's just. It's true, though, you know, And I. They live their life in a fishbowl, and there's so much pressure that comes with that. You know, marriage and family is such a beautiful blessing, but it's hard. And to have every little thing, everything you wear, decision you make, how you look at each other, how something comes off. I mean, just living with that pressure all the time, it takes a toll. And I. I do love. Know from. From. You know, we could. We could go on about lots of different issues, but I love that it seems to be from. From this interview. And again, we don't. We're not behind closed doors, but I think they are trying to prioritize their family. And that's. That's awesome. I mean, their relationship and then their children. I mean, she's pregnant with number two. And I won't give away. Watch the program because she says what they're having, which is pretty exciting. But, you know, it's, it's, it's just, I, I think that's awesome because that's what we're called to do. And as husbands and wives and moms and dads is we need to prioritize our family.

Yeah.

And you know, they, it's going to look different again their, their life.

You might look and say, oh, gosh, there's nothing I can learn from their life because their life is so different than mine. But again, a lot of, a lot.

Of these struggles are just regular human struggles. And what they did to say, honestly, nobody in our family, Harry Sane, has ever, like, really moved away or. There have been very few examples of that over the centuries of the monarch monarchy. But maybe for your family, this, this could be a takeaway, maybe for your marriage, the sake of your marriage, you need to at least temporarily consider moving away from where you are. I'm telling you, for us. And, and it wasn't.

It was a completely different set of sort of pressures.

You know, we were not part of a royal family.

Not even close, guys.

Not even close. But we both were in, you know, area. Ashley had never had anybody from her.

Immediate family for generations ever move away.

Generations from where she grew up.

And we felt like the best thing.

For our marriage and what kind of God was leading us to do early on in our marriage and a job opportunity.

Yeah.

Was to move.

And it was hard.

You know, we were moving with one little kid and pregnant with a second to a place where we didn't have any family support, we didn't know any babysitters. You know, we were going to be starting over. And that proved to be that move 15 years ago almost, I think the single best decision we ever made for our marriage because it forced us to lean into God, lean into each other, and really create our own family unit. And I'm not saying you can't have a healthy marriage if you live right.

Next to everybody's, you know, parents and extended family.

We love our parents. Yeah, we're going next weekend to see him. But it helped us so much to solidify and do what the Bible calls like leaving and cleaving together. That for this reason a man will leave his father and mother joined to.

His wife, the two will become one flesh.

That the physical act of leaving can.

Sometimes do wonders to help bring you closer together.

It really can. I know that seems so scary for some watching this, but, you know, sometimes that's what God calls you to do. Sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he says, you know, bloom where you're planted right now. And sometimes with jobs, we don't want to go, but we have to go. But it's always an opportunity to cleave to each other. And through every season, God gives you opportunities to learn how to cleave to each other. And sometimes it's really fighting for that, you know, fighting for that unity. And so, yeah, I just, I, I felt like I didn't know what I was going to get out of this interview. And I, I thought it was really, it really had a lot of insights into just marriage in general and family in general. So it's pretty cool.

Yeah.

So you can, you can check it out. You know, we're not paid sponsors of CBS or. No, Oprah did not text us and.

Ask us to do this.

No, no, no.

That we are going to get with Meghan and Harry for lunch later.

Yeah.

Oh, follow up.

You know, our random friends mechanism.

We don't actually know these people. And so, you know, we're, again, we're not doing, doing this to like just comment on the royals lives, but we always want to be a safe place to have conversation about what people are already talking about. And then bringing the national conversation, the global conversation back to how does this affect my marriage? How can I.

What can I learn?

What can I learn? And we should always be learning and.

Apply it at my house. Right. My house might not be Windsor Castle, but yeah, my. Our castle. Our house. So that we can have the kind of marriage that, that we're meant to have.

That's right.

Thanks for tuning in, guys. Hey, subscribe to this channel if you don't mind and, and leave comments. We love reading that stuff. You can also check us out on the Naked Marriage podcast and go to xomarriage.com for all the good stuff.

That's right. Thanks for tuning in. Bye.