WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- Ashley James says being single from ages 27 to 33 changed how she viewed fulfilment, relationships and social pressure.
- She found joy by investing love in friendships, interests and her career instead of treating single life as a problem.
- James believes judgment around women’s relationship status can encourage them to prioritise finding a partner and settle for the wrong relationship.
- After changing her approach, James reconnected with Tommy Andrews, her former Abercrombie & Fitch colleague, and they now share two children.
Ashley James believes being single can become one of life’s most valuable experiences, especially when women stop treating their relationship status as a problem that needs fixing.
The broadcaster and author says her own years without a partner transformed how she understood love, fulfilment and the pressure to appear desirable.
Speaking during her July/August cover interview with Women’s Health, James reflected on the period before she met her partner, Tommy Andrews. She explained that learning to enjoy her own life helped her stop settling and reconsider what she wanted from a relationship.
James was single between the ages of 27 and 33. During those years, she became increasingly conscious of the value society places on whether a woman has a romantic partner, regardless of what else she may have accomplished.
Instead of allowing that status to define her, James began investing more energy in the people and pursuits that already brought meaning to her life. 'I'd started to find so much single joy – putting love into friendships and interests,' she says.
Yet her professional achievements did not appear to carry the same social weight as finding a partner. 'And it felt frustrating that no matter how much I achieved in my career, nothing mattered because I hadn't met someone.'
For James, that frustration exposed a broader problem with the way women can be judged according to their relationship status. She believes such pressure may encourage women to focus on securing any relationship rather than waiting for one that is right for them.
'If women weren't judged so harshly on their relationship status, maybe they'd make more empowering decisions, or not feel the need to settle,' she says. Her comments challenge the idea that being partnered should automatically be treated as a greater achievement than building a satisfying independent life.
Looking back, James identifies a major change in how she approached dating and relationships. She stopped concentrating so heavily on how potential partners viewed her and began considering more carefully how those relationships made her feel.
That meant reconsidering her earlier efforts to be perceived as 'girlfriend material'. With hindsight, she wishes she had moved away from that goal sooner and given more attention to the qualities that made a relationship supportive of her wellbeing.
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James described wanting to understand what 'green flag' relationships that regulate the nervous system look like. Her focus therefore shifted from proving her suitability as a girlfriend to recognising whether a partnership itself felt healthy and supportive.
Not long after making that shift, James reconnected with Andrews, with whom she had previously worked at Abercrombie & Fitch. The couple now share two children, marking a new chapter after the years James spent finding fulfilment outside a romantic partnership.
Her experience presents single life not as an empty interval before a relationship, but as a meaningful period in its own right. James found joy by directing love toward friendships and interests rather than measuring her life solely through whether she had met someone.
The lesson she draws is that women should not be pushed to see being single as a personal failure or an urgent problem. Instead, they can be encouraged to develop fulfilling lives beyond romance while waiting for partnerships that genuinely support their wellbeing.
James’s perspective also places the emphasis on choosing well rather than simply being chosen. By letting go of the demand to seem like ideal partner material, she became more attentive to her own experience and less willing to treat a relationship as the only marker of success.
For James, the years between 27 and 33 ultimately offered more than a wait for romance. They gave her the chance to find single joy, strengthen friendships, pursue her interests and redefine what she expected from a future relationship.
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