‘MAFS: Australia’s Cathy Admits The One ‘Negative Thought’ She Had Before Meeting Josh

Lifetime

‘Married At First Sight: Australia’ is coming to America! The series premieres on May 27. HL spoke with Cathy, one of the cast members, about why she decided to do the show, her family’s reaction, and more.

If you love Married At First Sight, then you’re going to be obsessed with Married At First Sight: Australia. The series will premiere in the U.S. on May 27 and May 28 on Lifetime. The couples will be matched by experts John Aiken, Mel Schiling, and Dr. Trisha Stafford, leading to weddings, honeymoons, and settling into their domestic lives together. At the end of the social experiment, each couple must decide if it’s happily ever after for them, or if it’s time to get a divorce and go their separate ways. Ahead of the U.S. premiere, HollywoodLife talked with Cathy, a logistics investigator living in Sydney, who is matched with Josh, an industrial operator from Sydney. Cathy admitted that signing on for Married At First Sight wasn’t a huge leap for her.

“For me, Married At First Sight was something I was considering because I had already done all of the dating apps and failed quite miserably,” she told HollywoodLife. “I’ve also done all other avenues of dating. From my girlfriends hitting me up for blind dates to all the dates that I did go on from these dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, they all failed. I thought, well, going on something like Married At First Sight might seem crazy, but I want to try everything now. My girlfriends kind of encouraged me and were like: what’s the worst that could happen?”

As she got closer to the wedding day, Cathy didn’t get too nervous about what she was about to do. However, the one “negative thought” she had was “what if he doesn’t like me? Because I knew that I would put everything in my power and will to make it work. If I didn’t find him attractive initially, I would do everything I could to build a strong bond and friendship and try to get along with him and just find out his personality. You can find someone who is like a 5 out of 10. They’re kind of just average, but then you get to know them and they’re funny, nice, supportive, fit with your morals and values, and then all of a sudden they’re a 12 out of 10. That was the only thing that was holding me back. The negative thing that was holding me back was whether he would like me, not whether I would like him.”

Cathy admitted that her wedding was “breathtaking” and her “jaw dropped” when she met Josh for the first time. “I was shaking,” she added.

The Married At First Sight experiment is a lot to take in at first. Cathy revealed that her mum and dad had quite the reaction to her decision. “Mum and dad were really shocked,” she admitted. “Dad wasn’t happy with the whole idea because it was such a public display, so he didn’t want to be involved at all. Mum thought it was a joke because she thought that because it wasn’t a legally binding marriage that it was a joke. She was waiting for the punch line, do you know what I mean? When I told her the news, I said we’re going to try and make things work like a relationship. If we want to continue afterward then we’ll actually see each other as a relationship, and maybe in the future, we actually do get married. English is her second language, so me having to explain what the concept was and her understand that it wasn’t real was hard for her. They live in New Zealand, and I was in Australia. My girlfriends, who are my family here, they were super supportive. So I felt like I had some support that I consider family.”

As for what kind of man she was looking for, Cathy said it really boiled down to finding “someone who was nice to me. I’ve just dated guys who were such dicks to me and who made me just feel like they didn’t like me. When someone’s nice to me, I feel like I know that they like me. I was looking out for someone who was just funny, supportive, and I felt that their morals and values matched mine. Obviously, good looks would be an added bonus. I actually don’t have a type either, so there wasn’t really any look that I don’t like because I’ve kind of been everywhere.”

Throughout the experience, Cathy learned a lot about herself, including that she has a lot of patience. “I feel like during the experiment, and this is not just with my partner up but with being in the experiment with all these other contributors, I felt that I was a queen,” she said. “We’re talking some people whose fighting style is so disgusting and very childish that I felt quite royal by not stooping down to their level and just kind of watched the circus unfold.”