Lauren and Orion had a messy divorce in front of Married at First Sight cameras, and their dynamic post-split is proving to be just as chaotic.
In Us Weekly’s exclusive sneak peek at the Wednesday, March 27, episode, the exes try (unsuccessfully) to find a path forward after their failed marriage.
“As far as, like, my dynamic in my now-dissolved marriage, I’ve kind of checked out because I’m just tired of waiting for follow-through with things,” Lauren, 31, tells a group over drinks in the clip. “I’ve kind of just set boundaries and checked out myself.”
Orion, 27, responded by expressing his confusion over Lauren’s recent text message, saying, “Yeah, still trying to wrap my head around that message.”
Lauren retorted, “Hey, take as long as you want, nine days, nine years.”
The couple was matched by experts and met at the altar in the beginning of season 17 of the Lifetime reality show, but Lauren and Orion got a divorce shortly after moving in together. They never made it to Decision Day, where Married at First Sight couples are tasked with deciding if they’d like to remain married eight weeks after their wedding.
A major obstacle in their arranged marriage revolved around one another’s cultural differences and whether their backgrounds were appropriate to joke about. The pair made an attempt at reconciliation while living separately, but they ultimately made the decision to divorce. With just 10 days between their wedding and decision to divorce, Lauren and Orion’s marriage tied season 4’s Heather and Derek’s for the shortest in MAFS history.
While Lauren and Orion have tried to maintain a friendship since their split, things aren’t going as smoothly as they hoped. When Orion didn’t respond to a lengthy text message Lauren sent him expressing her feelings, she cut him off as a friend.
In Us’ exclusive sneak peek, the pair finally discuss the text message and the status of their friendship with several other cast members at a bar.
“I finally thought about it and sent him a message just setting boundaries,” Lauren says in the clip. “The text actually didn’t require a response, that’s the ironic part. But I felt like Orion still decided to respond, and I look and said, ‘Oh, he really hasn’t texted back in over a week.’”
Orion attempts to defend his lack of responsiveness, claiming he was still putting his thoughts together.
“I wanted to give you a thorough response, but I’m still trying to put that message together because it seems like a lot of, just, psychoanalyzing, and honestly, a little bit of projection,” he says.
It becomes clear that the exes weren’t getting anywhere, with Lauren countering, “I was not psychoanalyzing. I was being very compassionate in that text message. I was being very understanding in that text message. I offered room for us to still chat about this if necessary. Like, I offered all of that in that message.”
While Orion concedes that Lauren had all of her “bases covered,” Lauren continues to ask where the problem lies.
Married at First Sight season 17 airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
