‘Married at First Sight: Happily Ever After?’ Couple Reveals They Separated Following Pregnancy Discovery

Not everything for Shawniece Jackson and Jephte Pierre was onesies and baby books after the Married at First Sight: Happily Ever After? couple discovered they were expecting their first child together.

The pair, who met and married in season 6 of Married at First Sight, revealed that they were separated for a time following their pregnancy announcement in Tuesday’s series premiere of Married at First Sight: Happily Ever After? (produced by Kinetic Content), which follows three couples from the original franchise who are now expecting children.

The difficult time in their life was picked up on by relationship expert Dr. Jessica Griffin, who noticed that neither was wearing their wedding rings — which Jephte said his wife took when she was “really mad.”

“The reason why I took the rings was I just felt like we were at a point of time, we were arguing and Jephte still wasn’t happy, so I just said, ‘After eight months, if you’re still not happy, then what are we doing?’ So I just made the decision to separate.”

Jephte explained that he was in a tough place mentally at the time, saying, “We weren’t really together, and I felt like I had to get back to who I was before all of this happened, so I went back out and was doing my thing.”

He added, “She was really mad and really upset and she took the rings. And I didn’t see her for two or three weeks.”

“A long time,” Shawniece chimed in.

Jephte explained that he was dealing with “social media backlash” from his season of the reality series, which he said “was really affecting my mental state.”

“I was really messed up in the head,” he admitted. “I felt weak, I felt vulnerable.”

Turning to his wife, he apologized, “Sorry I didn’t tell you that, but I didn’t know how to communicate that with you.”

Also causing him mental turmoil was the fear of losing their baby, as Shawniece was “high-risk” for a miscarriage. “I was scared to talk, because I didn’t want to lose the baby,” he told her, adding he convinced himself it was the best thing for their child to keep his emotions in.

This revelation helped Shawniece understand where her husband was coming from, and clearly softened her to the father of her child.

“Even when it does feel like I walked away, I don’t want you to ever feel like I walked away from you,” she told him. “It’s just how I protect myself.”

Can the couple keep this positive momentum going through the end stages of their pregnancy?

Married at First Sight: Happily Ever After? (produced by Kinetic Content) airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on Lifetime.

Photo Credit: Lifetime