Just like Queen Charlotte, I romanticised the idea of ‘saving’ my partner from himself

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.

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.