Retreat Week should be a chance for everyone left in the relationship experiment to relax and get to know each other better. Instead, the tension between the couples explodes.
Will marriages crumble under the pressure?
The trouble began at the Married at First Sight commitment ceremony when Harrison, who’s married to Bronte, accused Melinda and Layton of having a fake relationship.
”He just knows how to grind my gears,” Melinda, 32, tells TV WEEK.
”I feel he was projecting from his own relationship. We were never faking it. Layton and me – our relationship is 100 per cent real.”
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Bronte is out for blood at the dinner party.
(IMAGE: Nine Network)This week, when the remaining couples go on a retreat in the NSW Southern Highlands, Harrison gets into an argument with Evelyn, which leads to the women, as a group, confronting Bronte about her relationship with Harrison.
Bronte is so upset by what Melinda says to her, she storms off in tears.
”I’m not liking what I’m seeing and, as another woman, I can’t just sit back,” Melinda says.
”I need to say something.”
”How can you say we’re faking it?”
(IMAGE: Nine Network)Tensions continue to simmer as the retreat goes on. At one point, Melinda and Evelyn eavesdrop on the men.
Melinda finds out that Harrison is saying things about her and Layton behind her back.
”It does rock the boat a bit,” she says.
Melinda and Layton agree to confront Harrison on the last night of the retreat.
”At that moment, I just couldn’t stand him, I didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to be around him,” Melinda remembers.
”I wanted to keep him at arm’s length from our relationship, but at the same time, I also wanted to put him in his place.”
Harrison’s views on Melinda and Layton put his own relationship with Bronte in the spotlight.
(IMAGE: Nine Network)The tense interactions set the scene for a fiery showdown.
”Harrison can come at me all he wants and can say whatever he wants, but don’t come at my relationship or anything to do with my partner,” Melinda says.
”I’m very loyal and very protective.”
She says the couples’ retreat turned out to be one of the hardest things in the experiment.
”I’m trying to save my relationship, I’ve got people coming at me… the drama at the retreat felt like a lot,” she says.
”I do think it changes the dynamic – not only of my relationship, but all relationships moving forward in the experiment.”
There’s a drama-filled dinner party to follow – and then the moment of truth on the couch.
Have all the arguments at the couples’ retreat changed anything?
