Former Married at First Sight contestants Ryan Oubre and Clara Berghaus appeared on Season 12 of the Lifetime series, and ended up getting married during the show, only to divorce earlier this year.
Now, Oubre has opened up about what led to their split. In a long letter shared to Instagram, he described what he endured in his personal life and on the show, which spotlighted the stark cultural differences between him and Berghaus. Oubre is Black and Berghaus is white.
“I’ve had several months to reflect on a very challenging moment in my life,” Oubre said. “Being a part of the show has taught me more about myself than I could have ever imagined. I’ve weighed the options of addressing the circumstances or choosing to continue to remain silent. I’ve decided to share my thoughts. I first want to say I’m not here to debate anyone’s feelings or emotions. You are allowed to feel the way you do—going through a divorce (not to mention a public one) is tough. The only advice I would give is [to] ask yourself ‘why do I feel this way?’ It’s exhausting and I get annoyed when my therapist does it but I normally come around and feel better about doing the work to understand.”
The former couple divorced two months after the season’s reunion aired in May.
“Secondly I hope you never have to experience a divorce, but if you do, you have the courage to do so with what you feel is right after taking time to come to peace with that decision,” he wrote. “How someone chooses to express emotions from that decision, although different than how I choose to do so, is understandable and OK. We all process events in our lives differently.”
Interestingly, according to Yahoo, Oubre informed the producers of Married at First Sight that he was only interested in dating white women—and caused some followers to question Oubre’s statement in the comments.
“I choose to address this not only for myself but hopefully for another experience that sparks a conversation outside of the reality TV show sphere,” he said at the end of the post. “If there’s something I have enjoyed is when a married couple with more wisdom about relationships than I’ll ever have, let’s me know a conversation or an idea we brought up on the show helped them in their journey. That’s something I underestimated in the power of TV. I made a promise to Clara’s parents to be respectful of their daughter regardless of outcome and I intend to keep doing so.”
