At the time of their marriage, Prince Andrew enjoyed a career in the British Navy that many have described as quite successful. While his job was important, both personally and for his family, it also meant that Andrew spent very little time with his wife. In fact, Sarah Ferguson later admitted to Harper’s Bazaar that the two only spent 40 days together each year in the first five years of their marriage, a reality that was difficult for her to process and accept.
Sarah also told the publication that when she and Andrew married, she had only one request that he was never able to fulfill. As she explained, “I married my boy, who happened to be a prince and a sailor, because I loved him—and still do—my only condition being, ‘I have to be with you.’” Only two weeks after the wedding, however, the royal family sent Andrew back out to sea (per Harper’s Bazaar).
While neither Andrew nor Sarah have commented in great detail about the circumstances that led to their separation and divorce, others have inferred that the many weeks and months they spent apart led Sarah to grow bored with the relationship in general. As the Chicago Tribune noted the year the two legally split up, royal author Sarah Bradford wrote that Sarah was often turned off by Andrew’s behavior when they were together, describing it as “embarrassingly boorish.”