We may look to the royals with rose-colored glasses and forget that their lives aren't
the fairytales we often imagine them to be, and William and Middleton are no exception.
In 2007, the prince and then-commoner actually split up and stayed apart for some time.
This is how it all went down.
By winter 2006, Prince William and Kate Middleton had been dating for four years.
However, this didn't mean it was all smooth sailing for them.
An excerpt from royal biographer Marcia Moody's book details a big sign of trouble in the
couple's relationship.
Middleton's family invited the prince to ring in 2007 in a countryside town in Scotland.
William planned to join them, but ultimately decided against it.
Naturally, this didn't sit well with his girlfriend of many years.
The couple hadn't been able to see each other at Christmas because, at the time, non-royals
were not permitted to celebrate with the royal family.
Unfortunately, the couple ended up spending all of the holiday season apart.
He joined the Household Cavalry
In 2006, William joined the Household Cavalry, a branch of the royal military.
For the first year, he trained for his eventual position as troop leader and officer.
After his yearlong, or more, training, he would then have to become familiar with other
branches of the Armed Services.
Since the military does not make him exempt from his royal duties, William would also
be required to attend an increasing number of public engagements.
Free time was limited.
William left to join his first regiment the day before Middleton's twenty-fifth birthday,
and the distance between the couple only grew.
A few nights after Prince William took Kate Middleton out for an early Valentine's Day
date at a London nightclub back in 2007, he returned to the club.
Only this time, he didn't invite his girlfriend.
Instead, he showed up with his army friends and ended up meeting a woman named Tess Shepherd,
a friend of some of the guys.
William and Tess danced, and one thing allegedly led to another.
She is quoted saying in a biography of Middleton’s,
"It's not true that I snogged him…
It was an embrace, but not a French kiss."
Even if the alleged kiss wasn't a big deal to her, you can imagine Middleton wouldn't
have been exactly pleased to learn about it.
William didn't exactly learn his lesson from his publicized kiss with the young woman at
the London nightclub.
In March 2007, the strained couple attended a horse race with the prince's cousin, Zara
Phillips.
Not long afterward, William set off on a ten-week military training course.
After settling in to his new, albeit temporary, digs, he and his buddies went to a nightclub,
uh-oh.
William got all kinds of drunk and began posing for racy pictures with some of the women in
the club.
William, likely still hungover from his regrettable nightclub adventures, was faced with both
pictures and quotes in the papers the very next day.
It became obvious to William that a decision about this relationship needed to be made.
But William decided to call it quits.
By April 3rd, 2007, Prince William and Kate Middleton's once-great relationship of four
years had officially ended.
To Middleton's credit, she didn't let the relationship's demise completely take over
her life.
She spent some time in Ireland with her mother and supported a friend who was hosting an
art exhibition.
William mourned the loss of their relationship a bit differently.
Apparently not having learned that he and nightclubs don't mix, he went out to quote,
"celebrate" at a nightclub in London.
The press hadn't caught wind of the couple's breakup yet, but according to Kate, he leapt
on top of a table and began shouting, quote, "I'm free!" and then proceeded to do the robot
dance.
Although being apart from William was difficult, Kate Middleton's friends and family had her
back, according to the book Kate: The Future Queen.
Gradually, the paparazzi backed off and stopped trailing her every move.
Unfortunately, though, this meant her relationship with William was truly over.
Her future, as she had always pictured it, was now no more than a fading dream.
After returning from her mother-daughter trip to Ireland, Middleton signed up for a charity
boating race, and rowing became a sort of therapy for her.
While she may have hoped she'd eventually reconcile with her Prince Charming, Middleton
later said,
"I think at the time I wasn't very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person,
you find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn't realized."
On April 11, 2008, just over a year after the couple broke up, Kate Middleton was invited
to Prince William's graduation ceremony, and it became apparent that a reconciliation was
around the corner.
The following month, she attended the wedding of Prince William's cousin, Peter Phillips,
while William was in Africa attending another wedding.
But it was there, at Peter's wedding, that Middleton finally got to meet Her Majesty
The Queen.
Talk about pressure!
Four years after their break up, and three years after getting back together, the couple
finally got married.
The rest is, as they say, history for these two lovebirds.