Awhina Rutene and Adrian Araouzou confused everyone with their Final Vows decision on Married at First Sight (MAFS) 2025, after the pair seemingly dumped each other before leaving the ceremony hand-in-hand.
“Do you want to spend time with me tonight?” Awhina asked Adrian after they “broke up.” Adrian replied, “Yeah.” The couple sealed the deal with a kiss, and Awhina said they considered the decision about whether to continue their relationship or not as too “black and white.”
MAFS fans mad at Awhina’s Final Vows decision
The backlash towards the pair was pretty intense, with unhappy fans taking to social media to slam Awhina in particular.
“Go home to your son,” one annoyed person wrote on the official MAFS Instagram page, with someone else saying, “One million red flags but, oh wait, you like his smile and all is forgiven? Is this grade six?”
“He knocked her back! She literally begged for one more night with him… why? This was so uncomfortable to watch!” another person said. “Go home and be with your son, he’s all you need, that’s real love!”
Relationship expert speaks out on Awhina’s decision: ‘It can be confusing, isolating, and sometimes scary’
While it’s easy for everyone to have opinions while watching an edited TV show, counsellor and Gottman-trained couples therapist Michelle Janssen spoke to Chattr about Awhina’s decision, saying fans weren’t having a very “compassionate” reaction.
“I’ve noticed people commenting online saying that Awhina knows he’s bad, and has acted poorly towards her so they’ve ‘lost respect’ for her. This doesn’t seem like a particularly compassionate or understanding response,” Michelle said. “When there’s control in a relationship, it can be very confusing and disorienting.
“No one falls in love with a monster and people are rarely bad all the time, so for the person who ‘can see the good’ in the other one – all they want is for the abuse to stop and for the good parts to remain. It can be a very confusing, isolating, sometimes scary time.”
Michelle went on to say that the show has normalised this behaviour, which can also be confusing.
“We’ve also got to remember MAFS has normalised this behaviour. He is allowed to talk over her, put her opinions down, and then sometimes throw in something nice,” she said. “It’s confusing and it makes someone unsure about where they stand.”
Are MAFS Awhina and Adrian still together?
Awhina told Chattr in late March that she believed Adrian was only on the show for fame.
“Adrian 100 per cent wasn’t there for the right reasons,” Awhina said. “100 per cent [he] was there to get famous. I mean it’s very telling. The experiment has ended and I feel like those cast members that have gone rogue, they’re the ones that are going, ‘I want more limelight’.”
Awhina also recently told Yahoo Lifestyle that she put on weight during MAFS, due to stress, saying her cortisol levels were extremely high which caused fluid retention.
“I’d been on ‘fight or flight’ [mode] almost every day. It was a chaotic arguing situation,” she said. “My face had blown up drastically, I can’t even tell you. When I got home, my son said to me, ‘You look different, mummy’. That’s how much inflammation there was.”
“It took such a physical toll on me and an emotional toll; it wasn’t worth being there,” she continued. “Whereas when we lived in those lighter moments, it was easier for me. I chose the easier route, because when I chose the hard route, he chose to stay anyway.”
We’re sure we’ll hear more after the reunion episode, but for now, that all seems very telling!
Married At First Sight 2025 airs Sundays at 7pm and Monday – Wednesday at 7:30pm on Channel 9 and 9Now.
Want to CHATTR with us? Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for more entertainment news.
