The experts aren't sure how to proceed after one couple butts heads. Photo / Warner Bros. Discovery
OPINION
The honeymoon is over, but the party is only just getting started because it is confessions week.
It’s one step down from honesty week, one step above passive-aggressive week and what our manager calls “constructive criticism week”.
John Aiken starts by revealing that this is the week the couples will move in together. He tells us it’s super important because it teaches them how to get along on a daily basis.
“Some people are very good at this while for other couples it becomes too much and they start to unravel,” he says. We couldn’t agree more, there is no bigger challenge than giving up half your wardrobe space.
“Okay, so, I’m thinking, this is my wardrobe and this is my wardrobe,” Sam tells her husband James before pointing to a small cubby in one, “you can have up here”.
We suggest James tries box breathing. In for seven seconds, out for seven seconds.
Then she spots another place for her clothes: “I’ll also need those drawers.”
In for seven seconds, out – ”No, no, no, no, no,” says James, putting his foot down. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit in the generously-sized cubby hole Sam gave him. “Our first argument, wardrobe space,” he says.
Sending good thoughts and an extra set of drawers to the couple’s room immediately.
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Meanwhile, in Piripi and Steph’s room, the air con has been set so low we can feel the chill from here.
Rehashing the night before, Steph tells the confession cam Piripi had too many cocktails at the surprise wedding and she was a bit annoyed, mostly because instead of being a fun drunk, he took Dua Lipa’s song way too seriously and was a Houdini drunk.
“She just told me I was a boys’ boy,” Piripi tells the confession cam. “She feels like she has to kind of baby me in a sense, which I didn’t respond to very well ... I think.”
Espresso martinis, they always play with our memory as well. Thank god Steph is here to fill in the blanks.
“He left the apartment, and I was asleep before he got back, and then he slept on the couch,” she tears up. “I don’t think that I should be waking up by myself on day four of the marriage.”
We feel for the girl, the only thing worse than a man you met four days ago letting you have the bed all to yourself is when a man you met four days ago ghosts you for an espresso martini.
“I’m really sorry for that,” Piripi grovels. “I should have stayed and tried to make things right with you.”
Steph wants to believe him, but she has her own confession to make. “I just get concerned about the actual depth of the words you’re saying.”
We grab our measuring tape, it was about 40 words by 80 heartbeats of pure honesty.
“I do want to find love, I honestly do. And learning to open up the last week has been amazing but I need to try harder with that.” We think Piripi should use hand gestures to show Steph the depth of his words, but instead he uses the oldest trick in the book.
“I think you’re very pretty.”
Steph can see that sentence is a 100 by 100 of “please let me out of the dog house now”. She smiles. All is forgiven.
We move on to the next dog house. “Honestly, the past couple days of the relationship I’ve been really f***ing struggling,” Maddy explains.
She then paints us a picture of who she believes Nate to be; Laughs at her, doesn’t wake up when she does, doesn’t plug in her phone charger, isn’t aware of other people. We can’t help but wonder, is she painting a red flag? Whatever it is, Nate doesn’t like it.
“You’re someone that I wouldn’t date in an open world.” Nate feels left out and wants to paint his own picture. We forgot to pay the $50 Sip and Paint fee so we can’t join in.
“Agreed, I wouldn’t date you either,” Maddy quips.
“When we had the wedding party, you were just loud and all that, felt like you were just shoving me to the side and weren’t even paying much attention to me,” Nate explains.
Unlike Nate, Maddy is aware of other people and realises this isn’t looking good for her. “The feeling’s mutual,” she says. “You’d rather go hang off with the boys, and that’s cool.”
Oof.
“Is that what you think?” he asks.
Maddy realises she’s run out of black and white paint.
“Oh f*** this, I need a moment,” she storms off. “I really can’t be f***ed with this right now.”
Nate isn’t finished. He’s taken a page out of Kara’s book and finds his voice, “I started asking her questions about her upbringing and all of that and she’s like, ‘Let’s not talk about that, just wait till it’s on camera’.”
Is Nate talking about Maddy or Kris Jenner? We aren’t sure.
After a brief intermission, we check back in with the couple, and it’s not looking good. Maddy has moved into a separate apartment, and she’s using her crystals to hex Nate. But before we find out if his dreads are going to fall off or if the experts will recouple her with someone else, said experts appear.
We realise Maddy wasn’t hexing Nate, she was actually summoning John Aiken and Jo Robertson so she can ask for three wishes; more black and white paint, someone to plug in her phone charger and an extra wish for later.
What she gets in return is an intervention.
“What’s your take on it, Maddy? What’s not working right now?” John asks.
“We celebrated Jesse and Cara’s wedding. We had come back, and it was 7 o’clock at night. I went upstairs and asked him ‘do you want to get some dinner?’ like, ‘how far away are you?’ But then when I couldn’t get an answer, I kinda just walked away.” We wonder if that’s when she thought up the hexing idea. “And then I heard a laugh.”
Say no more.
“There was maybe no ill intent with that laugh, but I heard it, and I just felt there was no awareness for anyone else at that moment,” Maddy explains. “That following morning, we were sitting at the breakfast table, I said, ‘Is there anything you want to talk about?’ and abruptly, he shut me down by saying, ‘Can I just eat my food?’.”
Aiken side-eyes Nate, who pretends he is back in Vanuatu.
“It’s hard to fight for someone and something when they don’t really want to fight for you either,” Maddy says.
It’s a confession that doesn’t tick a box for Nate. In fact, the only box he’s ticking is “Kardashian era” as he launches into his own side of the story. “There has been times where I’ve tried getting to know her and it’s just not worked outside because she wants us to talk on the camera, like getting to know her while we’re getting filmed.”
He concludes by looking off into the distance thoughtfully. It’s a nice touch.
“I was just like, be real, be yourself, show your vulnerability because that’s going to help someone else out there, especially from a man,” Maddy says and our sixth sense is telling us Mike King is about to recruit her as an I am Hope advocate.
Meanwhile, Aiken heard “men” and realised he had zoned out. “What do you mean?” he asks.
“You know, to show his feelings, to open himself up, to cry, to be able to be him and not fear of who’s looking or who’s judging,” Maddy says.
“Is that something that you think about?” he asks her.
“I’m thinking more so of the public, who are going to review this.” Duh, John.
Aiken has a lightbulb moment. “Ah, you don’t want to be thinking about that Maddy, at all.”
The Kardashians and their billion-dollar legacy beg to differ.
“Can I comment here?” Nate smirks. “I’ve always been vulnerable and I’ve always been open, it’s just who I am.”
Maddy disagrees. “But I did feel that you were holding back.”
“I wasn’t,” he snaps back, being really open and vulnerable.
“I don’t really know how to go forward from here,” Maddy says. John gives us his best “concerned but also thinking about what to have for dinner” face while Jo wonders what she’s gotten herself into.
Welcome to MAFS NZ, Jo!
Married At First Sight New Zealand airs on Three and ThreeNow every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
Lillie Rohan is a London-based reporter covering lifestyle and entertainment stories who joined the Herald in 2020. She specialises in all things relationships and dating.
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