‘Married At First Sight’ toed the line between compromising for love and knowing your worth
TheGrio...
The Black couples on “Married At First Sight” did not end up together but what they learned through the process may be even more meaningful.
Somewhere between “give ’em a chance” and “know your worth” is a healthy relationship — unfortunately, neither of the two Black couples on this season of “Married at First Sight” could seem to find one.
Season 20 of the reality TV dating experiment, which was set in Seattle this time around, ended Thursday, Aug. 27, with both Nikki Jefferson and Shawn Best ending their marriage on Decision Day. While Bellejolie Force and Mecca Amen walked away from the experiment married, by the reunion, they too had called it quits.
This season of the reality series—which asks complete strangers to marry one another after quite literally meeting for the first time at the altar, gives couples eight weeks to decide whether to stay together or get divorced—had viewers invested in its two Black couples from the moment they said, “I do.” Now that both marriages have ended and the reunion has aired, their journeys offer two very different looks at the sometimes murky line between giving someone a real chance and knowing when you deserve something different.
For Jefferson, an HR professional, and Best, a school principal, that line was blurry almost immediately. Jefferson didn’t even realize the man standing before her at the altar was her groom. From there, much of their marriage became an exercise in whether attraction and compatibility could actually grow if she gave Best enough of a chance.
There were moments when it seemed possible. Their banter could be playful, they had stretches where they communicated better and Jefferson did appear to open herself up more as the experiment went on. Yet that same banter could turn contentious quickly. Jefferson could HR-speak Best to death, while Best could slip into the condescending tone of a principal talking to a child. Even intimacy became a source of tension, particularly when they butted heads over whether sex was among Nikki’s “wifely duties.”
It became hard to tell who needed to bend. Jefferson clearly wasn’t getting the man she imagined for herself, but this was also “Married at First Sight.” Nobody is promised their dream spouse. Best wanted more affection and openness from his wife, but how much should she have had to force simply because they were married?
By Decision Day, they seemed to have their answer. Whatever progress they had made was replaced by fresh animosity, with Best asserting that Jefferson lacked emotional intelligence.
Meanwhile, Force, a musician and makeup artist, and Amen, a sanitation worker, started from almost the opposite place. There was real promise between them early on and, if anything, Force appeared determined to give her husband a chance. She gave him plenty.
Amen repeatedly admitted he wasn’t initially attracted to Force, questioned whether she was pretty enough for him and later said she wasn’t his “dream girl.” He agonized over whether he was deserving of love and struggled to take accountability, explaining that he had been raised to view mistakes as indictments on his character.
Force met much of it with an enormous amount of patience and forgiveness. Even during the couples’ retreat, when Amen appeared to flirt with another cast member — an interaction that became the final straw for that woman’s own marriage — Force was willing to move forward.
Marriage requires grace, sure. The entire premise of “Married at First Sight” practically demands it. You marry a stranger and then spend eight weeks discovering all the ways they are not the person you would have picked for yourself. Compromise is quite literally baked into the experiment. Watching Force, though, made it difficult not to wonder when giving someone a chance becomes giving them too many. That question followed both couples, with the pendulum constantly swinging over who needed to stand up, as the kids say.
Some viewers felt Jefferson decided Best was beneath her early on and spent the season trying to manufacture an attraction that simply wasn’t there. Others felt she had every right to be underwhelmed and that Best did little to help his case. Force appeared to have the opposite problem. She saw enough potential in Amen to keep forgiving things that increasingly had viewers wondering when she would decide she deserved better.
The men weren’t exempt from that struggle either. Amen spent much of the season questioning whether he deserved love while simultaneously picking apart the woman giving it to him. Best, meanwhile, seemed increasingly resentful of feeling like he had to prove he was good enough for Jefferson.
At times, they all seemed preoccupied with what they deserved while struggling to consider what their spouse deserved from them. Best told Jefferson she might be a “10” in Seattle but a “7” in New York. Amen said Force wasn’t his dream girl and described preferring someone thicker with larger breasts. Jefferson was candid about not being particularly attracted to Best. Force eventually quipped that it wasn’t as though she had asked for a man who paints his nails either.
By the reunion, the marriages were over, but the same issues remained. Amen struggled to understand why telling Force she wasn’t his dream girl had hurt her. Best didn’t feel he owed Jefferson’s mother an apology.
It was nice, however, to finally see Force find her voice after watching her extend so much grace all season. Jefferson and Best, despite how badly things ended, could at least recognize some of the ways they might have shown up differently.
That may be where the lesson actually landed. Knowing your worth does not always mean walking away at the first disappointment. Giving someone a chance does not mean accepting everything they give you, either. All four entered an experiment asking them to compromise for love and left having to decide what they could bend on without bending themselves.
Since the season has fully wrapped, all four have made statements about where they are now and, perhaps more tellingly, what they took away from the experience.
In a post on Instagram, Force said that since filming, she’s been able to heal and find the voice viewers had watched her begin to reclaim by the reunion.
“God helped me heal, find my voice, and choose ME again,” she wrote. “Turns out freedom looks good on me.”
In a post on his own, Amen shared what the experience taught him about himself, expressing gratitude for being challenged and given the opportunity to reflect on how he could show up differently.
“Words can’t express how eternally grateful I am for this experience,” he wrote. “Grateful to learn, to grow, and to gain insight on how to be the best version of myself.”
Best also acknowledged that the man viewers watched on television still had some growing to do in a lengthy caption of a post on his page. While disappointed his marriage didn’t work out, he said he left knowing himself better and more prepared for whatever relationship comes next.
“I found the type of me that I will be for my future wife,” he wrote. “So future wifey … if you’re watching, you’re getting something astronomically better than TV Shawn.”
Jefferson, meanwhile, acknowledged that there were moments when she could have communicated with more care and compassion, while making clear that she doesn’t regret giving the marriage a real chance or ultimately standing firm in who she is.
“Having a voice does not make you less loving. Honesty and kindness are not opposites. Holding a boundary does not make you closed-hearted,” she wrote. “I still believe in love.”
So while neither of Season 20’s Black marriages survived, at least all four walked away seemingly a little clearer on what they deserve — and what loving someone else may require of them.