If there were ever two people you’d want to sit down and talk love, sex and MAFS with, it would no doubt be John Aiken and Jo Robertson. The Herald’s Megan Watts sat down to chat with the pair about Married At First Sight New Zealand’s upcoming season and relationship tips that translate both on and off the screen.
Married At First Sight New Zealand is returning after a five-year hiatus, and with brand new couples putting their love to the test, we have a fresh new partnership helming the show.
Sex and intimacy therapist Jo Robertson will join John Aiken to guide four Kiwi couples down the aisle and into healthy relationships - all while providing some juicy reality TV to get the heart pumping.
Reflecting on the new partnership, Robertson looks at it like any other relationship. It’s based on respect, loyalty and a solid friendship.
“I think we really trust each other and so we lean on each other a lot,” she says. “I think it’s incredibly important to just enjoy the people you work with.”
“When we went in with MAFS New Zealand, we wanted to reboot it. And that meant doing it fresh and different and I think we really achieved that. We bounced off each other, we had a lot of laughs.
“And that sense of humour actually comes through on the show which, I think, is a real nice point of difference,” adds Aiken.
Of course, MAFS has been a staple on our television screens for some time now, with the Australian series being a firm favourite on Kiwis’ watch schedules for years. So much so that the programme overtook 1News to become the highest-rating television show in the country last year for viewers aged between 25 and 54.
According to Warner Bros Discovery, the series was watched by an average audience of 137,000.
So why is MAFS so popular? Robertson thinks it’s because the show is “gritty”.
Married at First Sight is “the only show where you see them get expert advice and so you might watch a relationship unfold on a different kind of show, but you don’t see that objective overlay”.
Aiken believes the secret ingredient to the show’s success is simple: “People wanna see whether the two strangers fall in love. Can they do it?”
“I think that what maybe people think happens is that John and I might sit in a room together, look at some pictures and some bios and throw people together, and that’s definitely not the case.
“We want a really healthy process and that’s why there’s lots of people’s opinions and there’s lots of advice that go into it - online tests, psych assessments, all the things.”
TV shrink and author John Aiken.
According to Aiken, values, communication styles, relationship goals, and attachment styles are analysed before the matches are made, but not everything on paper works out in reality.
“When we put them into the experiment, whether it’s the New Zealand or the Australian version, the fact is, we’re all hopeful that we’re going to get over the line.
But of course, people’s behaviour is “totally unpredictable” when they enter the show.
“And that unpredictability I think is also a real reason why people keep watching”, he says.
While both Aiken and Robertson are experts in relationships, more importantly, they are in healthy relationships themselves, with Robertson boasting a 14-year marriage and Aiken a 17-year marriage.
So, what have the experts - and ‘happily married’ poster children - learned about love? And what can we learn from them?
For Robertson, fun and kindness serve as the foundational blocks for any healthy relationship.
She says: “Joy is really essential in your life and in your relationships. So you need to prioritise fun,” adding, “fun is just as much therapy as therapy”.
As for kindness, she says it’s an act that “goes the furthest”.
“We bring our worst to our partners often and I would like to suggest that we bring our best.”
Aiken’s advice for a happy, healthy relationship is simple: “Listen, don’t fix.”
When talking about everyday stresses, crises and emotions, Aiken says he and his partner “side with one another, but never fix.”
“No solutions, no advice, no suggestions. And I think that’s a key part of just creating a bond and knowing that you’ve got each other’s back.”
So, as Robertson and Aiken bring a toolbox of expertise and experience to a new season of weddings, we get ready for a much-anticipated instalment of drama, devotion and little pockets of relationship wisdom.
Married at First Sight NZ airs on Sunday, May 26 on Three and ThreeNow.
