Married at First Sight!

[newhopewithanyluck]

Have just tuned in. Anyone else?

I think it is actually legal as someone earlier linked to an article by Clark of last years show and he said he'd had to wait a year to divorce.

Well that was disappointing. I didn't like anyone on this series that much even merlin

Ben was really unfair to Steph - all over her one minute, then cold and distant the next!
I think he isn't emotionally stable enough to fo this - he is still rebounding from his last relationship. Didn't like that Steph took all the blame for being a yoyo when she has been stable and fully invested from the start.
Richard grew on me - he seemed really kind. Not sure about Harriet - I guess if there's no chemistry it's better to just cut your losses.

I'd like to see more about why they match people. Was very odd that they put a dog owner with someone who doesn't like them.

Gosh Harriet thinks a lot of herself. Blissfully unaware that Richard is far more attractive than she is. She’s lucky he fancied her. Ice cold woman.

Richard was lovely. If I was Harriet I'd be all cuddled up to him and Merlin. She looked like she was sitting in a doctor's waiting room the whole time!

Ben reminded me of my abusive ex. Always moving the goalposts and making me doubt myselfand try to fix what I'd done wrong. Steph seemed to go from strong and cheerful to tearful and anxious when they lived together :(
Richard reminds me of DH as a solid, honest and utterly dependable rescuer type. DH has been a steady presence in my slightly mad life. DH did stuff he never thought he would when I was well. Matching Richard and Harriet with a dependable other was a mistake. They both needed a slightly less predictable other.

Harriet needs a full fringe to disguise her enormous forehead.
I will justify being a bitch because Richard is lovely .

squoosh the wrong turn at the studios theory is so funny!

I agree, it can't be a legal marriage. I can't believe that vicars and registrars would get on board otherwise.

Steph is just too much! also one minute she is super glam then really plain Jane. I think he likes her to be the former as he is very flamboyant too.
I think Harriett made Richard look boring but U can imagine that if you're not getting anything back, it really stops you trying.

U?? you!!

I think this 100% compatible thing is wrong.they kept banging on about them being the same, as in a good match. People need to compliment each other, not be the same as each other. I'm much more volatile than my DH and we need each other.Still very happy after 22 years of marriage. Opposites attract.

Stephanie reminds me of Pob

I don’t think Richard will be single for long

I feel a bit sorry for Harriet. Remember the show is heavily edited. She probably just didn't fancy him at all (doesn't matter if someone is objectively good looking or not) and felt terrible about it. You can't force yourself to have sex with someone and even touch them sexually if you don't fancy them. And without that it wouldn't be a marriage. Everything else you can make an effort with.

I agree her parents are great!

I would still argue that the 'best couple' is utter horseshit because of the dog!

What were they thinking.

I'm a dog person, I've always had dogs, always will (not in a creepy 'fur baby' way)

Any dog shapes my day, holiday, job and car. It changes everything.

The experts are utter crap if they thought that Harriet and Richard would be compatible. We all saw Merlin being cooped up. Harriet unhappy. Richard in a catch 22. Did the experts actually think Harriet would warm to the dog, or Richard would be ok with it?

Such a fundamental mistake!

Oh and when we were recruiting for a Nanny, we'd specify we had a dog, and the agency would send us people who 'were ok that we had one but wouldn't want to be involved' I mean on paper that's fine, but day to day it'd be a nightmare.

Muddy paws, checking garden for poo before DCs play out; you can't just pretend they're not there 24/7

marchonwards, I could not agree more about the dog. The so called experts asked them hundreds of questions and yet didn't think the fact that Richard has a dog and Harriet appears to hate dogs would cause problems.

Harriet calls herself a "cat person" but as I said earlier, I honestly doubt she even likes cats much. Some people may prefer cats or dogs but they don't normally hate other animals. She seemed to have no interaction with Merlin at all and didn't say goodbye to her or even glance at her when she left.

Either the experts are just shit at what they do or they did it on purpose to make good tv. Either way 2 people now have a failed marriage and a divorce behind them.

I think the marriages are fully legal ones. Someone posted a link from a someone who married in series 1 and they said it was and took some time to be able to divorce.

That's what I don't understand about the Registrar. She says she wants the marriages to work and surely should think the marriage vows are important. Why then does she think it a good idea to go on a tv show to marry 2 strangers when it is almost a certainty that the marriages will not work? Obviously for her being on tv is more important than anything else

It’s disappointing that they didn’t show more of the supposedly scientific matching process (I’m sure there has been a bit more of it in previous series). I agree with pp that from the little we see they seem to place great weight on similarity, rather than complementary characteristics. Maybe Richard and Steph would have been a great match - having their police stuff in common, but each bringing different things to the relationship to bring out the best in the other (his steadiness to give her a sense of security; her slightly wilder side to bring some fun to things).

I don’t think the team set out to create matches that will fail, but it does seem surprising that these couples were the best they could have found out of apparently thousands of applicants.

First Dates seem to do a pretty good job of matching strangers - perhaps their experts should be recruited to the team

I felt so sad when we saw first Richard and Harriet at the decision meeting - he looked devastated and it was immediately obvious (not that it was a surprise) that they were going to split. Agree about the dog thing, I love all animals but haven't had a dog since I was a child but merlin was adorable and it was painful to watch her behind bars. Richard and merlin are better off without Harriet and then some! I find something distinctly unlikeable about Ben - not entirely unrelated to his dress sense!

Ben is just awful. I think everyone knows a Ben, a camp guy, centre of his group of friends. Spends lots on grooming, clothes, prefers to be with the lads. has to have several lads holidays a year and expects a girlfriend to just fit into his group, go out with the other ‘wags’ but generally stay out of the way and keep the house / kids nice. Doesn’t like strong women.

The match definitely should have been Steph and Richard!

It really highlighted how rubbish the 'science' of matching is.

Richard/Dick seems to me to want to replicate a template of 1970s suburban/sitcom family life. He's got a stolid, conventional view of relationships/family and an olf-fashioned view of masculinity (including fashion! socks with sandals!! washed out M&S Tees) he's nice enough if you carve the stability of marrying your pipe-smoking uncle. So, if you've lived a life of being a bad girl who loved being dumped by bad boys and now you want to settle down, you might think he's your man - good luck, he probably would have put up with anyone in a gentle cardigany way - it's not what Harriet wants though.

He's got the job, the house, the dog, the hobbies, now he knows there's something he forgot... ah! the wife! Any wife'll do. Long as she don't cause too much fuss.

Two weeks of standing on his discarded Lego pieces would drive me up the wall. The long evening silences as you try to drag out any information from him... wrong, wrong, wrong.

Ben - personality disorder of some kind. Issues with the training and fighting. Didn't think Steph was glam/hot enough for him. Run Steph. Stay a long way away.

Hmmmm, Ben seems like a knob head but don’t think psychiatric diagnoses can be made on this basis

Regarding Harriet and the dog , dogs are hard work I have a dog and I love her but bloody hell they take a lot of commitment its almost like having a third child , not everyone wants a dog ..

Ben and Steph both seem quite unstable but I suspect that’s down to editing.

Harriet isn’t a bad person, they just seem so different.

On an aside, I find it weird when they kiss and hold hands on the wedding day. They don’t know each other at all at this point!

This made me chuckle, I did wonder if he was a bit funny about being married to a police officer!

futuristic - I didn't get any of that about Richard!

How have you managed to surmise a stolid/conventional view of relationships and family? Because he got married? So did Harriet! (and Ben, and Steph). How do you know how he views family? And "any wife will do, as long as she doesn't cause too much fuss"? I really don't get how you've got that from the programme and I watched all of it.

Richard is a police sargeant. Although he might come across as quiet or conventional, there is no way the kind of "gentle cardingy" type would make it for any length of time in the force and to become a sargeant (rather than a PC) shows he can definitely cut the mustard in a way that's far from gentle and cardingy. He will have dealt with all sorts of very tough criminals and situations.

Don't forget he is extremely bright and in the top 2% of intelligence of the population. I think you have misjudged him (from the information we have) and been fooled by his calm exterior, which will have been honed by the nature of the job he does.