Charlize Theron says she has been put off marriage for life.

Charlize Theron says she has been put off marriage for life.

'I believe in love but I don't believe in marriage. I saw my mother unhappy every day. What happened with my father was extreme, but my mother and I couldn't let it determine the rest of our lives,' the 32-year-old actress says.

Theron was just 15 when her mother snapped and killed her drunken father when he returned home to their small farm in South Africa.

She says: 'Back then if a woman was unhappy, she just had to put up with it. As a kid I didn't dream about my wedding day because I knew marriage wasn't exactly the stuff of dreams. I also don't believe in “happy ever after”. Things could end tomorrow.'

But the Oscar winner says she does wear a Victorian gold locket containing a strand of her Irish actor partner's hair which 'signifies my commitment to him.'

She says every time they part he puts 'a little love note' in it.

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