Married At First Sight’s jilted groom rejects runaway bride’s request for a second chance

THE jilted groom who was dumped without warning on Married At First Sight gave his runaway bride a taste of her own medicine.

THE jilted groom who was dumped without warning in the dark of night on Married At First Sight has given his runaway bride a taste of her own medicine.

Lauren made headlines following Sunday night’s episode when she smokebombed on new husband Andrew following a seemingly happy wedding day. Vanishing while they walked to a pub down a Bondi street, Lauren disappeared for several days, ending her marriage without a word.

After being located and smoked out of her rat hole by producers, the 33-year-old single mum was hauled to a warehouse in Tuesday night’s episode to come face-to-face with the man she dumped in front of Australia. Admitting she wished to give the marriage another chance, the decision was in Andrew’s hands. And as the tables turned, his face pretty much said it all.

Talking with the series psychologist before reuniting with his runaway bride, Andrew said he was not seeking an apology from Lauren, but needed an “explanation”.

Swinging the door open, Lauren bounced into the room in a black leather mini dress, laughing hysterically at a joke none of us were in on. She was positively beaming, as if she was Taylor Swift surprising a hospital full of sick kids.

“Surprise!”

“Hello Andrew,” she laughed, giving him a kiss on the cheek, pretending she just hadn’t received the 130 missed calls and text messages he’d left on her phone.

“Awky!” she joked, throwing her leather handbag on the floor and taking a seat at the opposite end of the couch.

Diving straight in, Lauren was asked to simply explain what the hell happened.

“It’s been very stressful, the last few months. Just everything going on, the build up. So yeah, it was a lot. I suppose I wasn’t probably myself on the day. I was a lot more out of sorts than I normally would be,” she said, painting rather broad strokes.

As Lauren continued to giggle and flick her hair around, we were all left feeling unsatisfied with her response. We tuned in for nitty gritty details. Asked what she felt when she first laid eyes on Andrew, Lauren’s answer was simple.

“I was like, ‘Oh my god! I’m glad I didn’t wear heels!’” she said, rolling her eyes, implying this was the reason why she bolted. “So that was something that did go through, play through my mind. Like, that sounds so vain but it was more I was expecting someone quite tall. Being quite a tall girl. That was it. So ... That sounds so awful.”

Indeed.

“Is there a problem?”

We’re walked through their wedding day to try and find the moment Lauren changed her mind and literally jumped in a taxi. While Lauren admitted the pair got on “very well”, she said his lack of children changed her mind.

“I was thinking, ‘You hadn’t had kids’. That was something that I wanted and was hoping for — to be with somebody that had been through a broken marriage,” she said. “That had had kids.

I mean, people can show empathy but some people don’t get it until you’ve actually had kids yourself. And come through a broken kind of relationship — how hard it really is to take on somebody elses’ child.”

Unaccepting of the child-card Lauren had just played, Andrew jumped in to point out he “spent 10 years teaching and mentoring 12-year-olds. I love kids and I relate to that age really well.”

Aiken later explained Andrew’s empathy towards children is a big part of why they were matched.

Lauren breaks down as Andrew explains what he’s been through.

The single mum listens to Aiken explain why she was matched with the firefighter.

Talking about the moment she decided to vanish on Andrew out the front of a Bondi pub, the single mum said she began to feel “vulnerable” and said she’s “scared of getting hurt”.

As Lauren began to break down, Aiken asked the single mum if she wanted to give the marriage with Andrew another chance. And surprisingly, she did.

“I can understand if you wouldn’t want to,” she told Andrew. “I think it’s just difficult to push something together after what I’ve done. I think I’ve burnt him in a way. And it would be

difficult for someone to get past that.”

With the decision in his hands, only a simple answer was required from Andrew: Yes or no?

Such delicious power.

His face said it all.

“Yeah nah.”

“No I don’t think so. Not the way it played out. Just, the things you need to rely on a partner and a teammate weren’t there at that stage so they might not be again,” he said.

Experiencing the bitter taste of national televised rejection, Lauren tried to pluck herself up and act breezy and unaffected. She laughed it off and said she totally understood.

“I would like to remain friends?!,” she suggested.

I swear, even the psychologist John Aiken laughed at this request.