“Seven years of marriage. A lifetime of stories,” captioned an Instagram post on the May 19 anniversary of her marriage to , alongside a shot of a mood board chronicling their life together. On it, she shared multiple never-before-seen private photos of them and their kids, Archie, 6, and Lilibet, 4, with annotations, quotes and the lyrics to “Stand By Me,” which was performed at their 2018 wedding, all seemingly handwritten in Meghan’s calligraphy. “Thanks to all of you (whether by our side, or from afar) who have loved and supported us throughout our love story — we appreciate you.”

The post also served as a taunt to their haters. “Let’s be fair, they have come under some pretty wilting criticism, much of it perfectly legitimate, some of it not,” royal expert tells In Touch of the polarizing couple, whose union has so far endured racist headlines, failed business ventures and accusations of bullying, betrayal and dereliction of duty. They’ve severed ties with their families and recently lost a lawsuit, which will likely prohibit them from ever returning to England together. Yet so far, they seem to have grown “stronger as an ‘us against the world’ team,” adds Andersen. “I think that despite everything that has happened and continues to happen, they remain in love.”

The storm of controversy still shows no signs of subsiding. Even Meghan’s anniversary post garnered a slew of negative comments because she didn’t mention Harry by name in the caption. And in late April, she was slammed for continuing to use the HRH title on a card she sent to a friend, despite no longer being a working royal. “I don’t want to be a part of the pile-on,” former BBC royal commentator tells In Touch. “But you really shouldn’t try to bake your cake and eat it. She turned her back on royal life, so it really does beg the question: Why does she want to cling on to any vestige of a life she so clearly despised? I thought America was all about equality… So why try to be superior? She’s walking a very thin line here.”

The Sussexes have never quite managed to get their optics right. “Many people view Meghan as spoiled, smug and self-satisfied,” Andersen, author of Brothers and Wives: Inside the Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry and Meghan, tells In Touch. “They have cast her as the villain in the piece — the woman who stole Prince Charming away from his family and his country. But Harry made that decision willingly, and that is equally galling to a lot of people. They have also cast themselves as victims despite the millions they’ve made and their lavish, celebrity-filled lifestyle in California, which frankly people also find incredibly annoying.”

They have also suffered multiple embarrassing setbacks — many of their own doing. For starters, their $20 million Spotify deal fell apart — with executive labeling them “grifters” — while former staffers at the flailing mental health app, BetterUp, lampooned Harry, 40, in a Daily Beast article for doing “zero things” in his job as chief impact officer.

Much has also been made of the fact that 18 employees have quit working for the couple since 2018, and even now, stories about how the duchess — who was the subject of a palace human resources investigation for mis- treatment of staff in 2021, though the formal review was never made public — regularly makes headlines for how she supposedly berated royal gardeners and caterers years ago. (Meghan, 43, denied allegations of bullying.)

But other sources paint a completely different portrait of her. “She was warm and considerate all the time,” her former bodyguard told In Touch last year. “Nobody had a bad word to say about her.” Cultural misunderstandings are at least partly to blame for the varying accounts of Meghan, , author of Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants, tells In Touch. “She was constantly hugging [everyone], and the royals found that very difficult to deal with. It’s part of that difference between the rather stiff emotionally repressed English and the more relaxed Californian. Several staff I spoke to who worked for Meghan said she was actually rather nice.”

So how did they beat the odds? “The forces in the world out there determined to break them … can be very unifying,” Andersen tells In Touch. The pair — who cut off the Markles early on because they talked to the press, then burned bridges with the royals because of Harry’s multiple tell-alls — also learned to tune out their critics. “We’ve apparently divorced maybe 10, 12 times,” Harry joked to the New York Times in December of the “trolls” who built their hopes on the Sussexes’ downfall. “And then it doesn’t happen, so I feel sorry for them.”

And it never will, Meghan recently vowed on her friend ’s podcast, noting that after being “in the trenches” they’re enjoying more of a “honeymoon period” now. “Look what we built. We’ve built a beautiful life, and we have two healthy, beautiful children,” she gushed. “I always think about the end of Super Mario Bros. when you get to the final, final level. Slay the dragon, save the princess. That’s my husband … He’s just going to do whatever he can to make sure that our family is safe and protected.”