The Cruel Rule On MAFS That Saw Two Couples Forced To Stay
By Olivia Esveld
February 12, 2018
If you love to watch reality television, no doubt you’re glued to the screen each night watching Married At First Sight.
It’s the show that sees complete strangers meet for the first time as they walk down the aisle and have to live together for weeks like an actual married couple - in other words, it’s GOLDEN TV filled with all of the juicy drama that you could dream of.
And boy did last nights episode deliver as we sat down to watch the first commitment ceremony of the season, where couples chose whether to stay or leave the experiment. It had everything, including “naawww” moments with the loved up couples, beautiful moments as some couples opened up like never before, and of course an absolute whirlwind of drama (AKA Davina).
But one thing that we didn’t really enjoy about last night’s episode, was the awkward, cringe-worthy, and we would even go as far as to say CRUEL moment that occurred when a show technicality forced two clearly unhappy couples stay together.
It’s a rule that has apparently always been in place during the commitment ceremony section of the show, but when the rule reared it’s ugly head last night, we have to say it made us seriously fired up, and surely we’re not alone here.
Of course, we’re talking about the fact that if at least one member of a couple chooses to stay, even if the other person wrote down leave, the couple must stay for another week in the experiment. Which okay, is fine if the couple agrees that they might be able to work things out. But this is not at all what happened last night.
Take for example Jo and Sean. Jo was completely blindsided last night as the partner that she thought she had a blossoming relationship with chose to leave the experiment.
While Jo had originally written down stay, after realising that Sean wasn’t committed to making things work, Jo asked through teary eyes if she could change her answer to leave. After all, Jo is a single mum who would prefer to go home to her children rather than stay on the show with someone who didn’t want to try and make a relationship work with her.
COMPLETELY understandable right? Well apparently wrong. The love experts, instead of showing compassion to a clearly upset Jo, wished her and Sean good luck with the week to come and sent them back to sit uncomfortably next to each other with all of the other couples…talk about AWKWARD!
A similar moment happened with Dean (or Deano as he’s been so lovingly nicknamed by Davina…) and Tracey. Tracey expressed how well the relationship was going, even admitting that they had been intimate a number of times, and revealing that she was obviously staying in the experiment.
But little did she know Dean had other thoughts. It was hard not to feel terrible for single mum Tracey as we watched her face turn from a smile to complete shock as Dean revealed he wanted to leave the show.
But once again the love experts, despite being able to see how visibly upset Tracey was, brought up the fact that the rules state if one person wishes to stay, the couple must remain together for another week.
But really, when the wives in these couples have thrown around words like “douchebag” and “asshole” to describe their husbands, and it’s perfectly clear that their relationships are not going to make anything apart from fascinating TV, should they really be forced to stay? Especially when both women involved have children in the picture!
So what do you think? Is this rule cruel? Should the rule be changed to allow people to leave if they really want to? Or do you think they should just suck it up and deal with the awkward situation at hand for another week because it’s part of the show that they signed up for?