I wasn't expecting to love Bridgerton spin-off, Queen Charlotte - a six-part series that tells the earlier story of the much-revered royal that we have come to know and love during the first two seasons of the Netflix regency drama - as much as I did. I'm always wary of a spin-off as they can be so hit or miss, but I lethargically flicked to the first episode of this latest version expecting to, at best, wile away a few hours on the sofa. Six hours later though, I found myself sitting - my reflection looking back at me from the black Netflix screen - with tears streaming down my face and a feeling that the lump in my throat might never go down again.
I should hardly have been surprised really, given that the Netflix show continues to rule the streaming roost as the platform's top viewed show every week since it first dropped earlier this month. In fact, last week alone, Queen Charlotte viewers totted up 158.68 million hours, giving the series a grand total of 307 million hours viewed since its debut, according to Deadline.
In some ways, Queen Charlotte had been exactly what I had expected, given my knowledge of Bridgerton: raunchy in places, beautifully filmed and accompanied by emotive 21st century songs, each reimagined so as to fit the era. What I was not expecting, however, was for the series to so viscerally play into a narrative from my own life, one that took me many years to recover from: the idea that we can ‘save’ the ones we love.
If you haven't seen the series, then be warned that there are imminent spoilers ahead, if you have, then you will likely have cried in all the same places I did, as we - the helpless viewer - watched on over King George, with all his charm and warmth, trying in vain to get control over his “madness”. At first, the royal manages to keep his decaying mental health a secret from his new bride - Queen Charlotte herself - however, over time, she discovers it for herself. For several episodes, we see the intelligent, young queen determined to help her husband overcome, what appears to be, a form of bipolar disorder. She is increasingly set on loving him back to full health.
Don’t be scared of your condition—you’re still you.
In the end though, her love for him is not enough and we see George, having fully succumbed to his mental health disorder, living in isolation in a separate palace. Because, as it turns out, love does not conquer all, no matter how much we would love it to. And it's a truth I, and many others, have had to learn first-hand.
When my boyfriend first became depressed at university, experiencing manic episodes along with it, I was totally taken with the idea that I could ‘save’ him. That while doctors and therapists struggled, our love, my love for him, our deep bond, would help him overcome the diagnosis and nourish him back to full mental health. I would stay up with him every night, discussing an ever-increasing array of intense topics - from death to the poetry that spoke to him. I would accompany him to his lectures, sit holding his hand while he sat limply and then walk him home to my university halls - which he had long ago unofficially moved into with me - where I would tuck him into bed and relay, what I felt were, soft words of comfort, over-and-over, while he dozed in and out of consciousness. “Come back to me,” I’d whisper to him.
I stopped seeing friends or going out, feeling rather that it was my duty to be beside my boyfriend day and night - that if I loved him harder, loved him longer, reminded him of who he was before the chemicals in his brain had morphed him into a listless, melancholy version of his former self. As time went by, I only romanticised more and more, that - like all great love stories - he would be able to overcome this, as long as I stayed by his side, as long as I loved him.
I naively believed that my love and effort could overpower his sadness, so I did nothing but focus on getting him better. I would drag him out of bed to go for walks around the campus with me; I would accompany him to his therapy sessions and wait outside, ready to let him curl up in the crook of my neck afterward; and I would regularly message his friends, asking them to just keep texting him, even though - as they always pointed out - he had stopped replying. I made a schedule for our weeks - incorporating as much nourishing food as I could and trying to make sure his essays were kept up with (though invariably, they weren't).
But I began to take his depression personally. If he really loved me, as I did him, why couldn't he be happy? Why couldn't he motivate himself to get support, for the sake of our relationships? I resented having put my own needs to the side for so long, I resented that - rather than deep passion - our romantic life had all but ceased and I resented that my innocent idea of how love could save someone from themselves had been all put proven untrue. Just like Queen Charlotte, I felt I had failed.
As the days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, I found that, though I still loved him as much as I had done at the start, I was a shell of my former self too. Not clinically depressed, but unable to find joy in things that had once so easily sparked life in me. Rather than refill his cup, I had drained my own - and we often sat, two lifeless beings, holed up in our room, with the lights off, the curtains drawn, ignoring the world outside.
Finally, a year on, I decided to get help for myself. I was struggling with huge bouts of guilt, worries about my own mental health and drowning in an ominous feeling that something much, much worse was on the horizon. I went back to therapy (something I'd stopped doing in a bid to free up as much time to take care of my boyfriend as possible) and over the course of several months discovered that I had duped myself. Not only had I been unable to save him, I had, in the process, lost myself too.
But working with my therapist helped me to understand that we can never ‘save’ someone, we can support them and love them and will, with all our heart, that they make it back onto a happier path, but we cannot scoop them up and put them there ourselves - no matter how deeply we feel for them. And trying to do so just puts both people in jeopardy.
We decided to breakup - something I feel, looking back, seemed to grant my boyfriend great relief - but it took me several years to really return to myself, to recover what I had lost. “If love cannot save us, then what's the point of it?” I asked a bewildered friend. I was racked with guilt, with dark thoughts and an overriding sense that love wasn't all it was made out to be.
“While the idea of ‘saving’ someone in a relationship can seem noble, it can lead to a number of issues for both individuals,” relationship therapist and founder of dating app, So Syncd, Jessica Alderson explains. “It can create an unhealthy power dynamic where one partner assumes the role of the saviour, and the other becomes the victim who constantly needs to be rescued. This dynamic can lead to codependency, where one partner relies heavily on the other for support. While all relationships go through natural series of ebbs and flows, if there is a major imbalance for a long period of time, it can cause fundamental problems, particularly if it involves unmet needs.”
She adds that “romanticising the idea of saving someone can put significant pressure on the saviour to 'fix' the other person's problems”: “This can be particularly challenging if the person being saved has deep-seated issues that require professional help. It's unlikely that the saviour will have the necessary skills or resources to provide the assistance that is needed. When we love someone, we want to do everything in our power to protect them, and if we aren't able to, we can end up feeling like a failure. On top of that, the saviour often ends up investing a significant amount of time and energy into the relationship, which can make it even more devastating if the relationship doesn't work out.”
Jessica also points out, as I experienced for myself, romanticising the idea of saving someone can also distract the saviour from ensuring that their own needs are being met. “When someone is constantly focused on ‘fixing’ their partner's problems, they often neglect their own physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing,” she says. “This can lead to burnout, resentment, and even further issues in the relationship. Ironically, the saviour can also end up developing issues of their own that weren't present before.”
And, while perhaps the idea of burnout or resentment might feel, in the dizzying heights of romance, like a worthwhile, and selfless, pay-off to see the person you love back to good health, it often doesn't pan out like that. “Trying to save someone in a relationship rarely works because the issues involved are usually much deeper than the saviour realises, and the motivation to work through them needs to come from the individual themselves rather than their partner,” Jessica tells me. “Addressing deep-seated issues such as depression or addiction generally requires professional help and serious commitment. It's never an easy journey, and it's important to be realistic about what you can do as a partner in these situations.”
While supporting a partner is a natural and essential part of any relationship to a certain extent, Jessica is quick to point out that it is important we recognise our own limitations and ensure our own needs are being met. “There's a fine line between compassion and self-neglect, and staying on the right side of it is key for your overall wellbeing. If you find yourself in the role of a saviour, it's important to ask yourself where this motivation is coming from. Is it coming from a place of fear and guilt or genuine love and compassion? Taking a step back and reflecting on your motivations can help you to make sure that you are doing what is best for both yourself and your partner.”
At the end of Queen Charlotte, we see the queen - now living an entirely separate life from her husband - return to the palace they once shared together to deliver George some happy news about their son. For a fleeting moment, he seems to return to her, remember who he once was - and there is a sense that this must be enough. That he cannot be saved or returned to his former self, but he can be enjoyed in the moment, for who he is now, by those who, though unable to save him, love him still.
“They’re not just thrown in. They're a part of storytelling.”
