Married at First Sight: Happily Ever After stars Shawniece Jackson and Jephte Pierre sat down with a therapist during the first episode of the show to discuss the difficulties in their relationship, including social media backlash and dealing with a high-risk pregnancy.
The couple, who married on Season Six of Married at First Sight spoke about having a brief separation. Jephte admitted to “doing his thing” as a way to cope with the changes that came with exposing his life to the public. As a result, Jackson left him for about two to three weeks after the filming of the reality show.
“While my season was airing, I was dealing with the social media backlash [and] people writing articles about. It was really affecting my mental state,” Jephte said in a confessional scene from the series spinoff.
The moment was a bout of depression where his “brain went numb.” He broke down at the mention of Shawniece potentially losing their baby girl, whose gender was exclusively disclosed in an article in July on EBONY.com.
“I felt weak and I felt vulnerable. I’m sorry I didn’t communicate that with you,” Jephte told his wife. “You were early in your pregnancy and you were high risk for miscarrying and I was scared to talk because I didn’t want to lose the baby.”
Married At First Sight: Happily Ever After? premieres tonight on Lifetime at 10 p.m. EST.
