Why Oprah Winfrey Never Wanted To Be Married

Mastermind of hit series “Scandal”, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “How to Get Away with Murder”, Shonda Rhimes was recently on The Oprah Winfrey Network for the “SuperSoul Sunday” show.

She had a chat with the Oprah and during their chat 45-year-old Shonda Rhimes, who is a mother of three, reveals that she has never wanted to get married.

Here are excerpts from their chat:

On the pressure to get married: “[It] feels obvious and maybe silly or something to people who are married or people who are older, people who have been through it. But if you’re a woman in your thirties or forties, that’s a big deal. Everybody’s asking you all the time if it’s going to happen … There’s a huge amount of pressure. It’s a lot like the desire to want to have children in our society. You’re supposed to want it, and if you don’t want it, what’s wrong with you?”

On always wanting to be a mother: “I’m one of those people, since I was 5, I could tell you I was going to have kids. I could tell you I was going to have three. I could tell you they were going to be girls,” she says. But I have never wanted to get married. I never played bride. I was never interested. I don’t know what it is; I never wanted to get married.”

On dating: “I love having boyfriends. I love dating. I do not want a husband in my house.”

On giving up writing to have a husband: “I have so much going on inside my head in terms of writing, there’s such a large space in my life taken up by that. I can’t imagine it being taken up by a husband and children and writing, and everything getting its due. I don’t believe there is room for all of it.  I really don’t. There may be some people who are doing it and who are very happy and who love it. And I am not knocking any of you. It’s never been a dream of mine [to be married].”

On finally admitting: “It was really freeing to say it out loud. I always felt like it was a dirty little secret.”

Oprah Winfrey also shared her thoughts on marriage saying “I don’t know if I’ve ever said this publicly, but I really wanted to be wanted to be married. I wanted Stedman to want to marry me. The moment he asked me to marry him I was, like… ‘Now I actually have to get married?’ I was supposed to do a book at the same time and the wedding and the book were happening around the same time. We were on our way from the book party and Stedman said he did not want to have his wedding disturbed by all these people asking me about the book (which I ended up not doing). I said, ‘OK. All right. So he said, ‘We should just postpone this wedding. I said, ‘OK.’ And that was it. We have never discussed it again.What I realized is, I don’t want to be married. Because I could not have the life that I created for myself … I knew that I couldn’t do it.”