Married at First Sight groom Keith Manley was certainly shocked to find out new wife Iris Caldwell was still a virgin when they tied the knot upon their first meeting, but the 27-year-old community mentor was determined to treat her comfort moving forward with the utmost respect.
Ahead of Wednesday’s all-new episode of the Lifetime reality show (produced by Kinetic Content), Manley opened up about his relationship with Caldwell, also 27, thus far to PopCulture.com, explaining his complicated emotions surrounding her virginity reveal.
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“Not gonna lie, I was pretty shocked to find out Iris was a virgin,” he admitted. “I wasn’t really sure if it was a good or a bad thing, I just knew it would present a big challenge for us either way.”
Manley’s big concern, he explained, was if the mismatch in their sexual lives would carry forward to their emotional relationship.
“Me being someone who lost their virginity as a teenager, I thought about how different I was before I started having sex,” he said. “It’s something that should be taken very seriously. It’s also something that can help you know yourself better.”
Despite his initial concerns, Caldwell and Manley bonded right off the bat, with Manley noting, “It was almost strange how natural everything felt right from the start.”
That doesn’t mean the couple didn’t struggle to grow their relationship on a deeper level, possibly stemming from their physical barrier.
“Our biggest issue as a couple was probably intimacy,” he said. “We have so many things in common but our experience with intimacy is very, very different. With us being married, intimacy is one of the most important things. I knew that I didn’t want to put too much pressure on Iris, and truthfully I wasn’t sure I was ready to take the next steps, prematurely, either.”
And while Manley can’t spoil the choice he and his wife made on Decision Day when it comes to the future of their relationship, he did take away one major lesson from the whole marriage experiment.
“This experience has shown me there are a lot of things I have to continue getting better at to become a better man, a better husband, and eventually a good father,” he noted to PopCulture.com. “I have to keep getting better at expressing how I feel in a productive way, first and foremost.”
Married at First Sight (produced by Kinetic Content) airs Wednesdays a 8:30 p.m. ET on Lifetime.
Photo credit: Lifetime
