Carol Vorderman "doesn't want to settle down" with anyone.
Carol Vorderman on why she doesn't want a traditional relationship
The 62-year-old TV star - who has children Katie, 32, and Cameron, 26, with ex-husband Patrick King but was also previously married to Christopher Mather - revealed last year that she has a circle of "special friends" as opposed to one sexual partner and admitted that the reaction was "universally positive" as she insisted she does not want a traditional relationship.
She said: "Well it was very interesting because I kind of talked about if off-the-cuff because we were talking about mature dating. The reaction was almost universally positive. There were a lot of women in their fifties and sixties - and their daughters - ringing in and saying 'This is a liberation for me.' They did say 'Aren't you brave?' I didn't think it was brave at all, just honest. One particular mother and daughter emailed in and said that 'My mum started crying when we were watching this because she had been divorced and made me feel like I had failed and people around me had said 'Haven't you found someone else to love you?'
When I was in my twenties, I wanted to find somebody, get married, and have children. From my fifties - I live with my children now but they're grown up - I have a busy house and a life which is very full and happy.
"It has come about naturally. I don't want to settle with anybody. My life is a cake. I have fantastic friends. I love my job, I love the business of education and I have people who love me. The male-female relationships are sort of the icing on the cake, rather than the fundamental basis of it. "
The former 'Countdown' star went on to add explain that her mother had expected her to have been married and settled down while she was still a university student but insisted she would never put that belief onto her own children as she explained her own intimate relationships come about as a result of friendship and noted the number of marriages that end in divorce despite the convention of monogamy being "drummed into" the population from a young age.
Speaking on Monday's (23.01.23) 'This Morning', she added: "They have their lives as well, but I never ask about that. Women are brought up to be carers. When I was young, society's rules were very different to what how they are now. I was born in 1960 and all women had only had the vote about 30 years earlier. It was a time of liberation and we had the Pill but if a woman who wasn't married and had a child, that child was called something very bad. At the age of 18, I was already at Cambridge, but my mother sat me down and said 'It's about time you settled down and get married.' You'd never think of doing that to your children [today]! So society has changed.
"It starts with friendship and there's an extra frison, I would say. In fairness, I've always been accused of being too independent when I was in other relationships. Maybe what I choose wouldn't suit a lot of people but I think some version of it would work.
"The facts of living in the UK are that half of first marriages end in divorce, three-quarters of second marriages end in divorce and 40 percent of adults in the UK are single so a lot of those are made to feel lonely when they don't need to be because it's drummed into you from a young age, even the Disney stuff these days, is still 'You meet your Prince and live happily ever after.' I'm sure they do have [other special friends], I don't talk to them about that."
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