‘Married at First Sight’: Is Zach Justice Not Attracted to Mindy Shiben?
From the beginning of Lifetime’s Married at First Sight Season 10, many fans worried that 32-year-old Zach Justice would be a little too shallow and looks-focused for 34-year-old Mindy Shiben.
Mindy, a figure skating coach, was ready to settle down for good after a tumultuous two years that included a heartbreaking miscarriage and the tragic death of her younger sister. Meanwhile, Zach, a personal trainer and fitness model, seemed immature and like too much of a ladies’ man to many fans.
On the Jan. 29 episode of Married at First Sight, “Trouble in Paradise,” many fans’ worst fears about the marriage were confirmed. Zach didn’t seem to be physically attracted to Mindy and even admitted that he “felt nothing” when they first kissed.
Mindy admitted Zach wasn’t into her
Mindy tearfully filmed herself outside her honeymoon suite in Panama, admitting that Zach had told her several times he wasn’t feeling any chemistry with her. “He told me, ‘I’m not building any kind of attraction to you, and what do you want me to do about that?’” the new bride confessed. She added that he felt “forced to make things work” even though they didn’t have a “spark.”
“I tell him, ‘Well, I guess this isn’t gonna work out,’” Mindy continued.
The Married at First Sight stars woke up on the third day of their marriage, and the second day of their honeymoon, to have an awkward conversation about Zach’s feelings of attraction to his new wife.
“I was like, shaking, just thinking I made a big mistake,” Mindy told Zach about her heartbreak when he admitted he wasn’t into her physically.
Zach admitted he had been “brutally honest in the wrong way too early” and claimed that he hadn’t only been talking about her looks. The couple agreed to move forward, but Mindy still seemed unsure about Zach’s attraction to her.
The ‘Married at First Sight’ couple had different amounts of attraction to each other
During a poolside discussion with the other Married at First Sight couples, Mindy got real with her castmates about how much Zach’s comments had hurt.
“Mindy and Zach are really distant from each other,” Taylor Dunklin told Lifetime producers. “They’re not really lovey-dovey like the other couples.”
When the other brides asked Mindy to explain why things seemed so off, she declared, “F*ck my life right now. He did tell me, ‘I’m used to the people I date, me being attracted to them right away, so this is weird for me.’ I took that as, okay, he’s not attracted to me.”
Mindy explained that she felt especially turned off by Zach’s focus on his own attraction and lack of interest in her attraction to him. The other women added that they thought Zach might be presumptuous about his own attractiveness because of his job as a model.
“My husband is definitely a hottie, and yes, I’m attracted to him, but chemistry is so much more than that,” Mindy told producers.
Zach admitted he ‘felt nothing’ during their first kiss
Mindy and Zach both said they hadn’t even come close to consummating the marriage. In fact, the Married at First Sight stars hadn’t been physically affectionate on their honeymoon at all.
“I won’t go force myself to hold my hand or put my arm around you and kiss you until it’s built up to that point,” Zach explained to the other new husbands. “Our first kiss, I felt nothing, and that’s just what it was.”
Mindy added that she felt like she wasn’t exactly what Zach had pictured in a wife in terms of either looks or personality. “I can’t help but feel that he wants a girl to fit into this perfect mold,” the Married at First Sight star complained, “and I’m this weird, quirky girl…and I’m not going to change who I am for him.”
Later in the episode, Zach told Mindy he was starting to feel more attracted to her because of her confidence and poise. Still, things ended on an uncomfortable note, and it didn’t look like the couple had much initial chemistry.
