India, Nov. 7 -- Actor Pavitra Punia announced her engagement to a US-based businessman, without revealing his name or his face on October 22. Now in a happy relationship, the 39-year-old feels that she let go of professional opportunities in the past due to her partner's needs. "When you start saying no to yourself, you lose opportunities that could have shaped you. My former partner wasn't comfortable with the kind of projects I was being offered. Being in the same field, he should have understood that, instead of holding me back," she tells us. Pavitra, who was in a relationship with her Bigg Boss 14 co-contestant Eijaz Khan for nearly three years before their breakup in 2023, now views that phase as a wake-up call: "I should never have been pressured into saying no to work or worried about what he would think. I forgot that my personal and professional lives are separate. Everyone knows how this industry functions. I had to break that chain, and now I've moved past it," she says. The actor, who was last seen in Reality Rani Season 2, now lives by her own rules. "I realised that the only person who should decide for me is me. I don't want to say no to something that could help me grow just because I'm worried about someone else's opinion. I've learnt not to say no to myself anymore," she signs off....