It’s funny how love works. Some women spend their whole lives dreaming it up, manifesting, wasting away moments thinking about what it will look like, what it will feel like. And then, when it reaches our front door, we don’t always recognize it as the welcomed guest we invited in.
I’ve met multiple women, family members, friends, who will gladly admit that the partner they chose to walk down the aisle with wasn’t necessarily the man they’d spent years thinking up. Maybe he didn’t make the kind of money they expected, didn’t have the looks they envisioned, or as several of my friends in interracial relationships have noted — I didn’t think he would be of a different race. These are honest reactions to what I consider a very complicated “entanglement” many of us have with love. What was true for the women I’ve surveyed — for me even — could be very true for one of Married At First Sight’s newest bride’s Karen.
To be clear, I’ve never met Karen. I don’t know her or her dating history, nor the description she held onto for the man of her dreams. But based on her body’s reaction to even the thought of marrying a guy she had already deemed “not my type,” I can imagine that Miles, for her, just did not add up. It didn’t feel personal, simply that the match, four years her junior, and emotionally expressive, didn’t fit the bill of the man she was hoping to meet at the altar.
Contrary to what other MAFS viewers have said — I mean they are not holding back — I didn’t find her confession a problem. We all like what we like and I don’t think Karen should be judged for her truth. Did she roll out a laundry list of reasons she didn’t find her soon-to-be-husband suitable? No. Was she overly negative about it? I don’t think so. She simply said he wouldn’t be someone she’d typically be attracted to. And in a high-stakes moment, she buckled under the pressure. Her determination of who Miles was came from a night of Instagram stalking, and she didn’t feel the attraction based on the comparison of what she saw to what she had envisioned her ideal guy to be.
If you watched Wednesday’s show you know that Karen, though a bit hesitant, did walk down the aisle. And when she reached her husband, a physical reaction took place. Her breakdown was described by some as “annoying” but I’m going to go ahead and say that breakdown was actually a breakthrough.
Years ago, after my first real break up, my therapist told me I had to mourn my ex-boyfriend. I had to release the plans I had made for our future and emotionally purge the dreams I had conjured up for our lives. In that moment, when Karen nearly fell out from the weight of her decision to move forward with her marriage, she may have been doing that exact thing — letting go of the notion of her “ideal man,” purging herself of the energy that closed her off to true love before.
Mourning doesn’t always look pretty. In fact, most of the time it looks like Karen — crazed and confused. But I’m hoping that her moment of catharsis clears the way for a lifetime of happiness. The Baton Rouge beauty may have found her match in Miles, the man she invited to her doorstep, who she must now allow to slowly walk through the door.
Catch all-new episodes of Married At First Sight every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET on Lifetime.