Married at First Sight star Ikechi Ojore has revealed what exactly he thought Emem Obot did to “poke” and “belittle” him during the first month of their arranged marriage.
“It was a culmination of things,” Ikechi complained during the Tuesday, January 14 episode of Married at First Sight: Afterparty.
“There were so many conversations we had off-camera. It was, ‘Hey, I need some time and space,’ and it was her not respecting my time and space. She would blow my phone up.”
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Ikechi also recalled how Emem pushed for elaboration and lengthy responses when she’d ask him questions about himself.
“She would ask me a question and continue to ask me a question,” claimed Ikechi, who previously called Emem’s way of questioning “aggressive” and “circus level.”
He continued, “I’d give her the answer that I had, and she’s just like, ‘That’s not enough of an answer. I don’t have enough of an answer.'”
Afterparty host Keshia Knight Pulliam warned Ikechi that when he thought he was giving Emem a direct answer, he wasn’t.
Keshia also pointed out how, from a viewer’s perspective, Ikechi had the tendency to answer whatever question he wanted to answer instead of the one Emem was actually asking.
“It didn’t seem like she was poking the bear,” Keshia argued.
But Ikechi countered, “You missed a lot. You missed a lot.”
Prompted for specifics, Ikechi went on to elaborate, “We went to a football game and we were hanging out with people, and just her conversation and how she was dealing with these circles of people was one way.”
“I don’t want to get into ultimate detail because of the people that were in the room. But it was just how she would talk to those people one way and then the woman crossing the street on the way home, she damn near ran her over,” he claimed.
Ikechi suggested he was astonished by Emem’s lack of respect for the woman crossing the street.
“I was just sitting there like, ‘Yo, what’s wrong?!'” Ikechi recalled.
“‘Move b-tch, get out the way’ were literally her words. This was how she treated regular people. I don’t f-ck with that.”
Keshia attempted to understand by putting Ikechi’s story in her own words.
Keshia said it sounded like there was “a certain caliber of people” at the football game and she had “treated them in high regard.”
“Right,” Ikechi confirmed.
“However,” Keshia continued, “when it was a random woman on the street that had no perceived value to her, she treated in a very different way.”
“Right,” Ikechi replied.
Keshia said viewers, however, never saw examples of Emem belittling Ikechi.
When asked if he saw Emem’s behavior with other people and took personal offense to it, Ikechi admitted, “It was how she treated other people and I could see myself in those people.”
But Ikechi apparently never told Emem how her actions affected and bothered him.
“I just imagined that people know how to treat [other] people,” Ikechi snapped.
Keshia explained to Ikechi that people aren’t mind readers and it wasn’t fair for him to hold his wife accountable for something she didn’t even know she had done wrong.
Given Emem was clearly unaware of the situation, Ikechi conceded, “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I should have communicated with her.”
Ikechi, in fact, said he wished he had been more direct in his answers for Emem.
“I’d give a truthful answer and just try to be as real as possible [if I could go back],” Ikechi said.
Ikechi explained how his defenses were high and he wanted to give Emem credit for being so patient with him during filming.
On Married at First Sight’s eighteenth season, Ikechi complained to Married at First Sight expert, Dr. Pia Holec, how his problems with Emem really began during the honeymoon when he had rejected Emem and refused to have sex with her.
“It just feels like there are times when I’m just a piece of meat in the house, like, the things I’m not ready for, she’s like, ‘Let’s go.’ And I’m like, ‘Look, I told you to stop,'” Ikechi explained.
Dr. Pia asked Ikechi if it felt like Emem was “violating [his] consent,” and Ikechi responded, “That’s what I said.”
Emem admitted she was confused because she had received mixed signals from Ikechi. She recalled, for instance, how she had her hand on his leg and he moved it to his private parts during the honeymoon.
Around the couple’s one-month anniversary of their wedding, Ikechi accused Emem of poking the bear and hitting him over the head with a stick during their conversations.
“When I read your vows, these vows don’t say that you will be an assh-le. I don’t get that part. I don’t see, ‘Hit a bear with a stick,’ in your vows… Don’t come at me about my answers!” Ikechi snapped at his wife.
When Ikechi and Emem joined their castmates for a special anniversary dinner, Emem put Ikechi in his place after allegedly not hearing from him — via call or text — for a couple of days. She called him “a clown” and poked fun at his “joker-ass suit.”
That night, Ikechi moved out of the couple’s shared apartment in Chicago, IL.
Ikechi later vented to Married at First Sight expert, Pastor Calvin Roberson, how he didn’t like Emem’s attitude and her personality.
Ikechi claimed that Emem belittled him frequently and made him feel like “sh-t,” which, in turn, caused her to lose value in his eyes.
“How many times has she made me feel small? It’s just how she acts. I don’t feel like I’m a partner; I feel like I’m an extra in this dream of hers,” Ikechi complained.
However, the latest Married at First Sight episode that aired on January 14 concluded with Ikechi and Emem meeting with the experts together and coming to an understanding about communication and boundaries.
Ikechi and Emem had both disrespected each other, and so they agreed to live with each other again and keep trying.
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About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.