Turning to reality TV to find your soulmate is a risky tactic, and unfortunately for Emma Barnes, it wasn’t the easiest of journeys on Married At First Sight.
The ‘j’ word synonymous with the genre is definitely something Emma, 32, experienced after marrying a perfect stranger in Caspar Todd.
In the most recent episode, viewers saw the newlyweds attend their first therapy session with relationship experts Paul C Brunson, Mel Schilling and Charlene Douglas.
Caspar explained that he didn’t fancy his new spouse and demanded to know why they’d been matched. Now Emma is wishing she’d responded with just two words.
‘Excuse me?’ she revealed, before bursting into laughter. However, it wasn’t so easy to confront Caspar, 35, about his comments, as she was ‘shaking’ with nerves.
Emma found herself in the unique position of being married to someone who didn’t fancy her after feeling like her life needed a shake-up. She decided there were two options – move from Bristol to London or do something wild.
Marrying someone she didn’t know fell into the latter category (and luckily the series is filmed in the UK capital so she was able to tick that off too), and so that’s how she ended up in a white dress.
After quitting her job of 10 years to participate, she walked up the aisle to Caspar.
Although, she was happy with the match, Caspar felt Emma reminded him too much of his sister and didn’t feel an initial urge to ‘rip her clothes off’. This is kind of fortunate when all the family and friends were in attendance.
‘I fancy parts of her, but not all of her,’ he told cameras. On their honeymoon in Jamaica, he told Emma he didn’t find her ‘sexy’ as he usually goes for petite women.
‘I’m a size 14, I’m not a f**king monster,’ she fired back before telling Caspar to reassess his view of women.
‘I didn’t necessarily feel a sexual spark either,’ Emma told us. ‘He was honest, which I respect, but the delivery could have been better!’
Reflecting on the powerful conversation, she says that despite her strong front it was ‘hard to hear’.
‘I was angry and so I did feel like when I was responding to him, I was doing it for the girls everywhere,’ she stated.
Since the series began, she has been inundated with support from women from across the country. ‘I’ve had people message to say that it’s only because of me that they’ve felt like they can leave the house that day,’ she proudly shared. ‘It’s been overwhelming, and phenomenal.’
This is a real comfort to Emma, who went through a tough time, particularly on her honeymoon. In the five-night trip, they were kept apart for around 80% of the time, and both were often in floods of tears.
‘I was in a big old honeymoon suite alone, it was quite lonely,’ she shared, with a tinge of sadness still in her voice.
Some viewers may wonder why Emma decided to stay, but for her, it was simple. After years of walking away from men when one thing puts her off, Emma decided that she wanted to change her dating behaviour.
‘I needed to stop thinking “Oh my life’s fine without them” and leaving. I absolutely was not going to let one conversation, or one argument, throw away a marriage. I had given up a lot to be there.
‘I also couldn’t go back to my friends just a week after the wedding to say I’d left the experiment,’ she explained of her rationale.
‘Caspar had the same mindset. We both wanted to work at it.’
As well as wanting to change her habits, Emma admitted she is also a super fan of the series. The only TV shows she regularly watches are MAFS, Match of the Day, and Strictly Come Dancing.
She confessed that being a fan did make her want to stay longer. ‘Time was flying, and there were points where I thought, I can’t leave now, we haven’t moved into the apartments or gone to enough dinner parties,’ she stated.
As a long-term viewer, she was quick to notice things that appeared different on TV, and her main takeaway was the length of time spent filming. On one occasion, they spent 12 hours filming the group therapy.
Watching herself on the TV show she adores has been an eye-opening experience for Emma.
She decided to throw a faux wedding in a local pub for the first episode and wore her wedding dress again. After watching it back, she found a corner to sit alone and sob.
The episode highlighted certain things she had no idea of on the day. ‘I can’t see past my own nose sometimes,’ she divulged.
‘I was on top of the world having a lovely day. When he mentioned I reminded him of his sister and I said “Thank you”. I thought it was a compliment. I had no idea what he was thinking, and perhaps I should have seen something was up.’
After it aired, Caspar sent her a text to apologise for the things he’d said. He wasn’t the only person to reach out – Daisy May Cooper has followed her Instagram account, Gemma Collins has made herself known as a fan and Jedward have also sent a unique message.
‘They said I remind them of Princess Diana,’ she shared. Surely a compliment from Jedward is of equal value to a happy marriage, but time will tell if she gets that too…
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