‘This can kill me, can’t do this anymore’: Shefali Shah says she would rather have lived alone than staying with ex-husband

Shefali Shah was previously married to actor Harsh Chhaya.

In 1996, Zee TV aired the popular show Hasratein, which starred Shefali Shah alongside her ex-husband Harsh Chhaya. The couple married in 1994 but decided to call it quits a few years later, a phase both have described as particularly turbulent in their lives. Now, Shefali has opened up about that difficult period in a conversation with Zoom, speaking about how hard it was for her to stay in the marriage and how she eventually carved her own path towards independence.

Reflecting on that time, she said, “Nobody told me that you are enough. You don’t need a husband, a friend, a brother, a sister to be complete. You are enough. So if you have great relationships, fantastic. But if you don’t, that’s not going to determine your value. Nobody told me that. And obviously, you go through things and you realise it yourself. It comes to a point where it’s make or break for you. That is when the realisation dawns. It may be happening every day, but then there’s that one moment when you realise, ‘Okay, this can kill me. I can’t do this anymore.’”

Talking about her decision to leave the marriage, Shefali recalled how a conversation with a close friend became pivotal. “I think I started feeling like this after my first marriage. I remember a very, very dear friend of mine asked me, ‘What if you never, ever find anyone in your life? Would you rather take that chance, or would you still continue to be in the marriage?’ And I said, ‘No, I will take that chance. If I have to live alone for the rest of my life, I will do it. But I cannot be somewhere that is not making me happy, that is not making me feel confident, that is not making me feel treasured.’”

She also spoke about the period following her separation, when she began living alone for the first time and slowly rediscovered herself. “That’s where I think I moved out. I lived alone for the first time in my life. My mom and dad didn’t live with me, but after I moved out, I lived alone for a year. I think that kind of didn’t make a lot of difference.” In the same conversation, Shefali addressed emotional abuse, something she once spoke about on Instagram, and why it often remains taboo despite being deeply damaging. She explained: “A lot of people go through it. A lot of us go through it. And you’re always told, and the constant question is, ‘Well, he didn’t hit you, right?’ Somehow it becomes this mindset of ‘Yes, he didn’t hit me’, meaning he shouted, screamed, said things like ‘you’re so foolish,’ but it’s fine, he only said it. What you don’t realise is the kind of damage that is doing to you. It breaks you completely as a person. And I so resonated with that post.”

Explaining why she felt it was important to speak up, she added, “When you tell someone that emotional abuse is just as bad, they respond with, ‘So what, you had a fight? Someone said something hurtful? You were demeaned in a relationship?’ They say that’s common in every relationship. So I had to share it.”

Previously, Shefali has also spoken about experiencing ingrained sexism from her in-laws. In a conversation with Pinkvilla, she shared, “I’m picked on a lot by my family. The thing is, I’m very passionate, and that comes across in the way I have a conversation. On a certain level, maybe it comes from your in-laws because they belong to a different generation. I remember when Vipul (her husband) goes for a shoot, nobody questions it. But when I’m shooting continuously, it’s like, ‘Again you have to shoot?’ And I’m like, ‘Are you serious? Did I just get asked that question?’ Or it’s, ‘You’re shooting for so many hours?’ That’s how it works. How come that question is never asked of your son?”

Shefali married Vipul Shah in the year 2000.