Priscilla Presley Realized Life With Elvis Was ‘Unnatural and Detrimental’ to Her Wellbeing

Priscilla Presley began dating Elvis Presley when she was 14 years old. She spent nearly all of her adolescence and most of her twenties with him. As she aged, she grew increasingly disenchanted with the life they shared. She began maturing into a person separate from her relationship and began to view Elvis’ preferred way of life as unnatural.

Priscilla Presley grew tired of the life she shared with Elvis

Not long after Elvis and Priscilla married, he experienced a career revival. As a result, he spent long stretches of time away from home. Priscilla was used to shaping her life to Elvis’ desires and suddenly had to find ways to keep herself occupied. Through activities like dance and karate, she began to mature.

“I was seeing myself for the first time, and it was going to take a while for me to get used to the image,” she wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “I had a chance to observe marriages outside our inner circle, where the woman had just as much say as a man in everyday decisions and long term goals.”

This was not the case with Priscilla’s relationship with Elvis. He believed that, as a woman, her opinion mattered far less than his. He grew angry when she did anything but support him. 

“I was confronted with the harsh realization that living the way I had for so long was very unnatural and detrimental to my wellbeing,” she wrote. “My relationship to Mike [Stone] had now developed into an affair.” 

She wished he could have grown with her

Though Priscilla had begun an affair, she wanted her relationship with Elvis to work. She had dedicated herself to him for years, and now she wished he would adjust to their changing relationship.

“I wished there was some way for me to share my experience and growth with Elvis,” she wrote. “From my adolescence, he had fashioned me into the instrument of his will. I lovingly yielded to his influence, trying to satisfy his every desire. And how he wasn’t here.”

She wished that they could have a normal relationship. He was set in his ways, though, and Priscilla began to experience these things with other people.

“Accustomed to living in dark rooms, hardly seeing the sun, depending on chemical aids for sleep and wakefulness, surrounded by bodyguards who distanced us from reality, I yearned for the more ordinary pleasures,” she wrote. “I began to appreciate the simple things that I would have liked to share with Elvis and hadn’t: walks in the park, a candlelight dinner for two, laughter.”

Priscilla Presley realized Elvis was not willing to do what it took to save their marriage

For years, Priscilla had found Elvis’ unwillingness to show vulnerability to be a problem in their relationship. She agonized over how to help him, but he wasn’t able to open himself up to her. She believed he saw it as a sign of weakness when it was really something that would have brought them closer.

“In order for our marriage to survive, Elvis would have had to take down all the artificial barriers restricting our life as a couple,” she wrote. “There was too much room for doubt, too many unanswered questions for the mind to play upon. It was difficult for him to come to terms with his role as father and husband. And since neither of us had the ability to sit down and squarely face the issues jeopardizing the family, there seemed to be no hope.”

By 1972, Elvis and Priscilla had separated. They divorced in 1973.