Married At First Sight’s Lyndall and Bronte have both tried to stick it out with men who don’t like them

Lyndall and Bronte have spent the season trying to make their relationships work with men, but there’s a reason their behaviour is normal.

OPINION:

There has been a point in every relationship I’ve ever had where I’ve looked at my romantic partner and thought “this man doesn’t like me very much,” and then literally seconds later, I’ve wondered how it has taken me so long to notice.

I call it relationship blindness.

This season of Married At First Sight has two perfect examples of that syndrome. There’s Bronte and Harrison and Lyndall and Cameron.

Both men in these relationships do not like their female partners and they aren’t being subtle about it.

Their dislike of their partners is as obvious as the Akubra that Barnaby Joyce has kept insisting on wearing for the past 30 years.

Bronte and Harrison just aren’t a match, Lyndall and Cameron are also a mess. Photo / Instagram

Cameron wants to catch fish with his bare hands and not kiss Lyndall.

Harrison wants to take gym selfies and rant about what a devoted father he is while going on a reality show that keeps him away from his son.

Occasionally when he takes a breath from that, Harrison will make some jab about how he can’t “trust” Bronte.

James Weir recaps: Read all the recaps and other MAFS stories here.

If their relationships were a pump class, a middle-aged woman in activewear with a high pony and a very still forehead would be screaming at these men: “Give me more!”

These men aren’t interested in giving these women more.

The woman, on the other hand, are giving it their all.

Spending time and energy trying to dissect and understand red flag behaviour.

Harrison never thinks he has done a thing wrong. Photo / Instagram

Maybe he doesn’t want to kiss me because he fears emotional intimacy?

Maybe he gaslights me every second of the day because he really cares about me?

Nothing can deter these women from sticking to relationships that are as flimsy as a $10 Shein dress.

Lyndall is constantly crying about her relationship. Photo / Instagram

Last night Cameron said: “I love you as a person, but I’m just not going down that path of falling in love. That’s where I’m at,” he explained.

Cameron declared he didn’t want to be with her, yet after sobbing, Lyndall remarked: “I’m really excited to get home and make a massive decision … I’ve got a lot to think about for final vows.”

Girl, this man isn’t interested, and he just told you he wasn’t.

Meanwhile, after weeks of Harrison acting completely unimpressed by Bronte, it finally clicked in her brain.

Bronte yelled, “Honestly, I have never, ever met anybody like you. I mean that in the worst way possible!”

She screamed to assure everyone she was finally done: “I’m done!”

You go, girl! But from the outside looking in, it does feel remarkable that it took Bronte weeks to realise that Harrison wasn’t interested.

Bronte and Lyndall have banded together. Photo / Channel 9

Curb your judgment because haven’t we all been there? Been delusional about a relationship?

Haven’t we all tried to rationalise why the guy we like hasn’t texted us back? Maybe he dropped his phone?

Haven’t we all tried to fix a relationship that wasn’t worth repairing? Maybe he likes those influencers’ half-naked selfies ironically?

Haven’t we all checked his friend’s Snapchat while he’a on a boy’s night because we are worried he will cheat but refuse to see it as a red flag?

So why do we do it?

Relationship coach, Debbie Rivers, explained that the reason some women try so hard in relationships that seem so obviously doomed is for a variety of reasons.

“It can something a simple as having low esteem and needing to get the person to like you to feel OK about yourself. It never works as you end up being a gaping hole of need.

“Or it can be because the woman feel she’s invested too much and can’t let go or even because the person can only see the potential or the idea of a person and not the reality.”

River also added that sometimes the reason women stay attached to men that aren’t interested comes down to science.

“The chemicals that are realised for women after sex create attachment and even addiction to the person. Love is like a drug,” she pointed out.

I’ve had a man tell me he doesn’t want to be with me and chalked it up to a weird Tuesday vibe because I just wasn’t ready to accept he wasn’t in love with me.

When you want something to work, you won’t just ignore the signs, you won’t read them. It’d be easy to call Bronte and Lyndall dense, but these are just two women that are blindly clinging to the idea of a happy relationship and deserve sympathy, not an eye-roll.

MAFS Australia is available to stream first on ThreeNow or on Three Sunday 7pm and Mon to Weds 7.30pm.