Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Have Had a "Painful" Year Since Their Nanny Moved Back to the UK

• Since their royal exit last spring, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been through a lot, including several moves before they settled into their forever home in Montecito, California.
• Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, the coauthors of Finding Freedom, have continued to report on the couple's transition even after publishing their hit book about the royal exit. 
• Scobie wrote that the Sussexes' journey has been "painful," while Durand spoke to a friend of Meghan's who described the struggles they faced when their nanny left her position to move back to the United Kingdom when they relocated to California.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have had quite a year. Since their royal exit, the couple has relocated across the Atlantic to North America, where they moved around several times before settling into their forever home in Montecito, California. This would be stressful enough, of course, but Harry and Meghan made their huge life change in the midst of a global pandemic that has made it impossible for them to visit Harry's family in the United Kingdom for months now.

Still, through it all, the couple is thriving. In a piece for Grazia, Finding Freedom coauthor Omid Scobie described the Sussexes' year, writing, "To be at the point they are at now, having set up an empire and a charity in just over nine months, shows just how hard they have worked to make this transition a success, but it’s taken a lot of work to get here. The journey has been painful."

Part of that pain comes from the loneliness Harry and Meghan have experienced. In addition to being separated from the rest of the royal family, the couple was left by a key member of their staff early in their transition, apparently.

"It's just been a lot," a friend of Meghan's told Carolyn Durand, the other half of the Finding Freedom writing team, according to the Daily Mail. "Their nanny moved back to the UK when they moved to LA because of the pandemic and restrictions left them feeling quite alone. Each move made them feel more displaced.

Now, of course, Harry and Meghan are reportedly feeling much more settled. A source recently said the couple had "no regrets" about their royal exit because they "feel very rewarded from their work."