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After nine months together, the romance has fizzled between Nick Furphy and Sharon Marsh.
The striking couple, who were matchmade on Married At First Sight, looked like they’d be the only pairing that would go the distance.
But the love wasn’t deep enough for Sharon, 31, leaving producers of the hit show with a 100 per cent failure rate for season four.
‘I love Nick, but after moving to Melbourne eight weeks ago to be with him, I soon realised that I’m not in love with him,’ confesses Sharon, who resettled back in Perth a fortnight ago.
‘I’ve shed many tears over this, because I really wanted it to work. I wanted the butterflies and roses – but I also needed a deeper love.’
The first inkling that something was not right came as soon as the stunning blonde moved east.
‘I had a constant ache in my chest and it didn’t feel like I’d made the right decision,’ she says. ‘I missed everything about home – my dog, my sister, my parents.’
Nick, a carpenter, knew something wasn’t right, so asked her: ‘What’s up?’
‘I told him I wanted to feel more,’ says Sharon, who owns a cleaning business, conceding Nick wasn’t a touchy-feely sort of guy.
‘We’d walk down the street and there was no holding hands. I also think the physical distance between us worked against us. Being apart [for seven months] didn’t make the heart grow fonder, it just made me frustrated and it was more a case of out of sight, out of mind.’
‘It broke my heart,’ says Nick, 30, who’s still devastated by Sharon’s decision.
‘I started to shake and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I fell hard and fast and gave it my all. It has made me lose my faith in love a little bit.’
The pair signed up to the reality matchmaking show – Sharon and her twin sister Michelle to find love, Nick for a dare – and hit it off immediately.
They met at the altar and were married blindly – along with nine other couples – after being thrown together by three experts.
More than a million viewers tuned in each episode to watch the relationship struggles, as complete strangers got to know one another.
‘We had to keep pinching ourselves that we met on a TV show,’ grins Sharon, who kissed her beau for the first time at the altar. ‘It felt so great to be together and despite the circumstances, we found our relationship natural and effortless.’
It was Nick’s sense of humour that initially attracted her, then a chemistry she found magnetising.
‘He’s full of surprises, treated me well and was never boring,’ she says. ‘He did everything right over our whole nine months together, but in the end, it wasn’t enough.
‘It was an experiment – we gave it a red-hot go but the odds were against us. It’s sad because I was so excited about it working.’
For the full story, see this week’s New Idea – Out now.
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