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Where All The Married At First Sight Season 5 Couples Are Now
- Entertainment
- Lifetime
ByLeah Mulroney
Do you believe in love at first sight? Cast members on Lifetime's original series "Married At First Sight" do. During the season premiere, hopeful bachelors and bachelorettes endure a rigorous interview process in order to assist a panel of experts and matchmakers in finding them a perfect match. Once the couples are matched up, they walk down the aisle in a totally legitimate wedding ceremony where they meet for the first time. "I do's" are exchanged moments after eye contact is first made.
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Following the wedding, the couples spend eight weeks getting to know each other and trying to cohabitate before they reach the final on-camera step in the process — Decision Day (via Distractify). Here is when thecouples decide whether or not they will be staying married following the show's end. Neither person in each couple is aware of what the other person's answer will be until they share it with their partner and the experts (and millions of viewers), a moment which can sometimes end in major heartbreak. Overall, "Married At First Sight" couples have a success rate of around 30%, a statistic the experts on the show would like to see reversed to a 30% failure rate.
Season 5 of "Married At First Sight" featured three couples — Ashley Petta and Anthony D'Amico; Sheila Downs and Nate Duhon; and Danielle DeGroot and Cody Knapek (via Lifetime). For these couples, the 30% success rate holds true. Of the three couples featured, only one union remains intact.
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What happened to Danielle and Cody?
As a registered dietician and a fitness trainer (via Screen Rant), respectively, Danielle DeGroot and Cody Knapek looked like the perfect match at the start of Season 5 of "Married At First Sight." When the show's experts paired them together, fans optimistically waited and watched for the couple to connect instantly. Throughout the show, the couple experienced conflict surrounding DeGroot's hesitancy to become intimate with her new husband (viaPeople). Despite their differences, the pair did enjoy each other's company. DeGroot told People, "Cody and I did laugh hysterically like that and goof around in our rare downtime." At the end of the season, when Decision Day came, DeGroot and Knapek both opted to move forward as a married couple.
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While the newlyweds were hoping for a long and happy life together, Degroot revealed that she still hadn't quite warmed up to Knapek on the Season 5 reunion episode, saying "I still just don't feel in love, I think, so it's very hard for me to totally embrace it." Ultimately, the marriage would not last. DeGroot took to Instagram in 2017 to announce that, after a year of marriage, she and Knapek would be separating. She wrote, "While this was a difficult decision and divorce is not something either of us hoped for, we decided we will be happiest separating." It appears that the split was amicable, as she made sure to add that she's "got nothin' but love" for her now ex-husband.
Sheila and Nate
When Sheila Downs, a school district operations manager, and Nate Duhon, the manager of a rental car company (via Screen Rant) met for the first time on their wedding day, they were excited about their just-officiated marriage. The excitement, however, was not shared by everybody present for nuptials. It turns out that Duhon's parents were opposed to his appearance on the show and did not hesitate to let it be known. On their wedding day, Downs recalled, "In that moment, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, but that sense of euphoria was short-lived."... "[His family] made their presence and discontent known. I was taken aback by my disapproving mother-in-law and the profanity-riddled speech from the father of the groom" (via Distractify).
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The couple fought throughout the duration of the show, but when Decision Day came, both Downs and Duhon opted to remain married (via Insider). In 2017, the pair shocked fans with the announcement that they were ending their marriage. The split was not amicable as Downs made public claims that Duhon had been unfaithful throughout their marriage, saying, "there were women throughout our ENTIRE marriage" (via People). Duhon refuted the claims in a tweet, writing "Infidelity was not a reason, nor did I ever admit such a thing."
Ashley and Anthony
Ashley Petta, a bar manager, and Anthony D'Amico, a sales executive, tied the knot in 2016 along with the rest of the "Married At First Sight" Season 5 castmates. For Petta and D'Amico, there was instant chemistry (viaPeople). Petta said of her first impression of D'Amico, "He has such a cute little face! I felt very comfortable spending the night with him. Oddly enough, it felt pretty natural." D'Amico gushed about the first meeting as well, saying "She didn't feel like a stranger to me — I felt connected with her right away. To think that 24 hours before this is, I was sleeping in my own bed and now I'm sleeping next to a beautiful angel and calling her my wife is crazy, but a good crazy." The two were hopeful for the future, and it turns out they had every reason to be.
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In August of this year, Petra and D'Amico celebrated 5 years of marriage. Since their televised wedding in 2016, the couple has welcomed two children, Mila Rose and Vaeda Marie D'Amico. The couple still regularly gushes about each other on Instagram, proving that sometimes the experts on the show do get it right. While being married at first sight isn't for everybody, it's nice to see a happy couple come out of the process.
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