Rosamund Pike, 47, says she stepped away from the traditional expectation of marriage and built a family her own way.
On Wednesday’s episode of “How to Fail with Elizabeth Day,” the actor reflected on a broken engagement in her late 20s that reshaped her view of relationships.
Pike was engaged to filmmaker Joe Wright in the late 2000s, though the couple ultimately called off the wedding. Looking back, she said the experience made her question the conventional milestones many women feel pressured to reach.
“My failure to get married. Well, it’s a big deal for a 28-year-old, isn’t it? Your, sort of, template for womanhood — you’re doing the right thing. Got a lovely boyfriend, he’s asked you to marry him, you’re getting engaged, and there’s going to be a wedding, and you know, it’s the right age,” Pike told podcast host Elizabeth Day.
The actor also recalled her then-fiancé asking if she was “pleased” to be marrying before 30. She added that she thought it felt “right” and “romantic” at the time, until their relationship fell apart.
The breakup was “utterly devastating,” and public scrutiny made it worse, she said.
However, Pike eventually began to see the experience in a new light.
“The freedom from that afterward is that you sort of think, OK, so you haven’t achieved the thing, I suppose, the template,” Pike said. “He was a man who was eight years older than me. He was successful, he was good-looking, he was funny — he was great. And then it doesn’t happen, and you think, ‘Oh, no.'”
“But then you realize that actually you’re free in a way, because you think there are so many other templates of what life can look like for a woman,” she continued.
The breakup also helped her see that there are “so many other ways that love can look like.”
Pike has since been in a long-term relationship with businessman Robie Uniacke, and they share two sons together. Their first child, Solo, was born in 2012, and their second, Atom, in 2014.
“Here I am. I’m not married, but I have a family, and I’ve been with someone for 14, 15 years, happily not married,” Pike said.
She added that she was intentional about marking commitment in a “different way” in this relationship.
“It was more important to cement that or, sort of, mark that with starting a family than having a wedding, because also, I thought I’m the center of attention so often. I don’t need a wedding,” she said.
Pike isn’t the only celebrity to question traditional expectations around marriage and motherhood.
Charlize Theron has called single motherhood “one of the healthiest decisions” she ever made, despite the stigma around it.
“With women, it’s always like, something must be wrong with her. She can’t keep a man. And it’s never part of the discussion of like, ‘Wow, she’s really living her truth. She’s living in her happiness. This is actually a choice that she made,'” Theron said during a July episode of “Call Her Daddy.”
Michelle Obama has similarly pushed back on the idea that women must hit certain milestones by a certain age, saying turning 35 shouldn’t be viewed as a deadline for marriage or success.
“I would just say there are no ‘shoulds’. There are so many ways to live a happy, fulfilling life,” she said on a November episode of her podcast.
