‘Married at First Sight: Happily Ever After’: Shawniece Jackson Reveals She Hasn’t Kissed Husband Jephte Pierre in 5 Months

Married at First Sight: Happily Ever After couple Shawniece Jackson and Jephte Pierre are settling into life as parents to daughter Laura Denise, but the new parents still have work to do in their relationship with one another following a tough separation.

In Tuesday’s all-new episode of the Lifetime reality show (produced by Kinetic Content), the new parents were overjoyed (and a little tired) in their first few days as mom and dad, celebrating their anniversary and looking at how far they have come in their marriage so far following a separation.

“Our relationship has been a rollercoaster since the day we met, but now my daughter is the driving force behind me pushing to make sure our marriage works,” Pierre told the camera. “I want to be around for my daughter. I want to be a good dad, but an even better husband.”

There has been a struggle getting their physical intimacy back on track, however, with Jackson revealing she hadn’t kissed or been intimate with her husband in five months.

“Once we got back together, the physical touching and sexual contact has been nonexistent, because I don’t feel confident in myself right now,” she told the cameras. Pierre understood, to an extent, but was ready to move forward in their marriage already.

“I don’t want her to be hurt, but this is the risk we take trying to learn to love each other again,” he told the cameras.

The Married at First Sight couple first met and married in Season 6 of the Lifetime show (produced by Kinetic Content), but admitted early on in this season of Happily Ever After that they had separated soon after finding out they were expecting a baby, with Jackson revealing that she had taken her husband’s wedding ring after he left during a tough time.

“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,” she admitted to the experts in an October episode.

Pierre explained of his state of mind at the time, “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.”

Going into the birth of their child, the couple was dedicated to repairing their relationship for the sake of their daughter. And it was good they started early, with Jackson giving birth to their daughter a month early after only five hours of labor at 5:47 a.m. on Aug. 20, 2018, weighing in at only 5 lbs., 15 oz., and measuring 17¾ inches long.

Can the two rebuild their family for the sake of their daughter?

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

Photo credit: Instagram/Shawniece Jackson