Therapist on Why Melanie Kept Taking Sincere Back | Love Island 8

[00:00:00]Growing up, my parents would always be like, "Oh, he's a ladies man." I mean, they're not wrong. There's one sincere, but there's 8 billion people out there.

[00:00:06]Like, I would be selfish to not spread the love.

[00:00:08]>> Almost everyone in the villa is telling Melanie to stick it out with sincere and that he really cares about her, while America is telling her that she needs to get away. Let's talk about the difference in what everyone was saying and why this couple was getting such mixed messages throughout their time together on the show. Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. If you're new, welcome to my channel. My name is Stephanie Yates. Ana Bule, Steph Ana for short, and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. Today, I'm going to be breaking down everything that we saw unfold between Melanie and Sincere on Love Island season 8. If you're curious, stay tuned.

[00:00:50]>> There's been such a focus on Sincere specifically in this couple and conversations about him being toxic. And while Sincere absolutely contributed a vast majority, I would say to what has made America lose trust in this couple, but obviously not too much trust, they did come in third place. I do believe that there is a pattern happening in this relationship and early context that we're absolutely missing when we talk about this relationship. Before we get too far into the video, take a break with me.

[00:02:20]Now, let's get back into the video. All right, let's start with a little bit of a recap. We've been watching the show for six weeks. If you're like me, I didn't miss an episode. I didn't miss a minute. I'm not on my phone during the show. I'm locked in. So, let's talk about the timeline with Melanie and Sincere. Everybody knows that they chose each other in the very beginning.

[00:02:38]Sincere actually had two options behind his door. One being Anniah, one being Melanie, and he chose Melanie. He and Melanie had similarities like both being from the Northeast. I think Sincere is from the Jersey area and Melanie's from Philly, but she did ultimately move to LA. They had an instant pairing, an instant spark. And so, the thing about Love Island is that time seems to move so slowly and quickly on the show because by day three, we're seeing them really functioning almost like boyfriend and girlfriend. We're seeing that from a few of the couples this season where from the beginning, they had a connection that it seemed like it was very hard to break. But, let's talk about what really started to shift their dynamic. Even though Sincere and Melanie both had the opportunity to explore new bombshells on the second day, they both decided to stand on the green dot and choose each other, meaning they wanted to remain in their current couple.

[00:03:30]However, when Kada got back from Paradise Cove, Sincere did sort of covertly pull her for a chat. Now, this chat was very platonic, and you'll see this as a theme with Kada throughout the show. Plenty of people did pull her for chats, but Kada really only had eyes for Zach from the beginning. And so, she's very platonic in her conversation with Sincere. And so, the conversation itself was not bad. I do wonder though, had Kada had interest in sincere, if she would have been comfortable with the conversation going a little bit further, if she would have been a little bit more flirtatious with him, we may have seen some of the things that came up later in the season earlier on. But because I believe she was the one sort of establishing that more platonic boundary, we really don't see any conversation between them that's worth notice. Before Melanie even meets Kada, however, she's already asking questions to sincere that shows she might be a little threatened about a new person coming in. She was asking Kim what she looked like, what she was wearing.

[00:04:35]>> Was she hot?

[00:04:35]>> Yeah. Yeah, she looked good.

[00:04:36]>> Yeah. What she look like?

[00:04:38]>> Kind of like your height. Looked like similar to you, but she wasn't you.

[00:04:40]Never.

[00:04:41]>> Obviously. And to me, she was asking the questions in a way where she was trying to measure herself up to this person that she hadn't seen.

[00:04:48]>> Give me more.

[00:04:49]>> Like she was like light-kinned.

[00:04:50]>> Yeah. Black straight hair.

[00:04:51]>> Any tattoos?

[00:04:52]>> I wasn't looking that hard.

[00:04:53]>> Kaya comes in. Sincere pulls her for a chat and Melanie's insecurities I believe were at that moment definitely ignited. That same night, the Islanders are doing a truth game where there's a statement read and you have to guess who it applies to and push them in the pool.

[00:05:10]It comes out that sincere has a history of cheating.

[00:05:13]>> Which islander is guilty of texting other people while they were with someone else?

[00:05:19]>> Sincere.

[00:05:23]>> And Melanie, there's this kind of famous gift or meme about her where she's kind of looking like, okay, you know, that was information for her. And as Melanie is talking to the girls later on, she says that when a man cheats on her, she cheats back.

[00:05:38]>> It's okay cuz I cheat back. See, I don't cheat back. I'll get the on.

[00:05:41]>> I never cheated back, but now I'm at a point in my life where I if you cheating and I'm cheating and let's be cheating.

[00:05:46]>> She doesn't say like, "I'm the type of person who's going to end it right away.

[00:05:50]That's an absolute deal breaker for me."

[00:05:52]No, she says that she retaliates. So, we start seeing a little bit of a different character arc for Melanie, right? So, she starts pulling people for chats. She mentions to Annayia and all the girls at once that she's going to be pulling KC for a chat. Just like I went down there and said, "Tomorrow I am exploring. I'm going to pool Casey and I will test this like connection."

[00:06:13]>> When they were doing the office game, she goes to Casey and says that he's been dying for another taste of it.

[00:06:19]>> My office crush is someone I know been dying to taste it again.

[00:06:23]>> Casey, >> and she started just kind of having that retaliation she talked about earlier. if she feels like someone's going to cheat, we start seeing that coming out. And I think it's very important to note that at this point, America really did not like Melanie. They started feeling like she was playing around with sincere and that she was blowing things out of proportion. At this point, America was really liking Kada, who had just come in and Melanie was acting as though she couldn't remember Kada's name. You pulled >> What's her name?

[00:06:59]>> Katie.

[00:06:59]>> Katie. Hello.

[00:07:01]>> When you pulled Katie, he went and chatted with um >> Kada.

[00:07:05]>> Kayada.

[00:07:06]>> Some people believed she really didn't know Kayada's name and some people thought that she was doing it intentionally because when she needed to be comforted later on, all of a sudden she did know Kayada's name. A new bombshell comes in during this office challenge and it's Corbin. And so Melanie tells the girls that he is exactly her type.

[00:07:23]>> He is my type to a team. And so we start seeing Melanie really kind of laying it on thick with Corbin. You see her wanting to sit by him. She pulls him while he's in the middle of talking to all of the girls. And that actually led to this whole debacle with Bea, who felt like Kinsey should have had dibs. I believe Bea had her own personal reasons for wanting Kinsey to have dibs on Corbin. But this is where we get the Give Me 10 sound bite from.

[00:07:51]>> Give me 10.

[00:07:53]Give me 10. after Melanie's confronted by Bea for pulling Corbin. So, at this point, Melanie is being viewed as a person who is spiraling. Right.

[00:08:03]>> I'm not going to make this.

[00:08:04]>> No, that's crazy.

[00:08:06]>> She nervous, right?

[00:08:07]>> People are kind of looking at her like, "I thought you really like this guy, but now you keep playing in his face." And then I think the ultimate time that people started getting frustrated with her is when they're doing this blindfolded challenge on a big bed and a new slew of bombshells comes in. There's two moments here that a lot of the Islanders paid attention to as well as America that really solidified Melanie and Sincere's relational spiral. So, the first incident is that when Melanie gets to Sincere, you had to kiss the guys and guess who the person you're coupled up with is. Melanie gets to Sincere. It's said that she clearly touched his hair where Sincere is the only guy who even has hair like that. Continues on to kiss Corbin. goes back and forth and it seemed pretty clear to people that she knew what she was doing. It just so happened to be the two guys that she shown the most interest in. Melanie stood by her statement that she didn't know who was who >> got between two and I was like these two kisses are good. So I'm like which one is which one is the best?

[00:09:11]>> And people called her out. KC called her out on that.

[00:09:15]>> Nel you know I love you bro but you know you was playing. people just did not believe her that she didn't know who it was. And then when the newest male bombshell, Caleb, comes in, Melanie gets so so excited. Now, Melanie says she was very excited for Kinsey because now there's someone here that's just her type. But others are saying they don't believe that because at that point, all you could see was his feet. When Melanie started getting so excited about a male bombshell coming in, >> all they did was say Caleb and then you started jumping up and down. We literally seen his feet >> and you were and you were tweaking.

[00:09:53]>> So Sincere had conversations with Melanie where he told her that he was feeling embarrassed.

[00:09:58]>> You were literally going ping pong with me and Corbin. Like it's embarrassing cuz I I felt I felt disrespected and embarrassed.

[00:10:05]>> I'm sorry. And I'm not saying any of this to say, "Oh, everything sincere did was justified." Absolutely not. What I want to talk about though is the pattern of their relationship. And I unfortunately think this is very important context as to why Melanie continued to allow Sincere to make decisions that embarrassed her and ultimately why Melanie kept taking him back. One reason why I want to talk about this is because we need to talk about the anchoring bias. And this is basically why people say that first impressions are so important.

[00:10:39]Psychologically, first impressions really are important because we do have the ability to see people through a different lens, but it takes a lot more time than it does with those first impressions. What an anchoring biases, that early ambiguous information that disproportionately shapes our later judgment. So, let's say that first 10% of what you get to know about a person can really match or sometimes outweigh the 90% you get to know about them later just because of those initial impressions. Think about people who still engage with you, you know, how you used to be when you were a child, your interest back when you were a child or how you used to act in high school or college. You're kind of like, I'm really not the same person that I was back then. And you can tell that the person is treating you that way because those were their initial experiences with you.

[00:11:31]And it's hard to see beyond those experiences. And I believe that's what happened both with Melanie as well as Sincere in terms of how the villa was viewing them as a couple as well as how a lot of audience members were viewing them because even though there are so many conversations about Melanie and Sincere, we've got so many brands even getting involved telling Melanie to leave sincere families being involved telling Melanie to leave sincere. There are a lot of people obviously that do not feel that same way. They came in third place, right? They did very well on the show. A lot of people were inspired by what they believe to be a love story that had a few hiccups. So, we need to talk about why. And one of the important psychological fundamental aspects here is our first impressions of both of them. So, people were initially looking at Melanie. I saw words like she's hiding her crazy. I saw people say she's out for revenge. People say she's for the streets. These are things that I saw. If you also saw that in the comments, please validate that these are not my thoughts, but these are things that I saw. And so for sincere, a lot of people were feeling bad for him. They were like, "Oh, you know, Melanie's playing around with him." And what did that lead to? The proof of that is when Soul and Sincere were coupled up by America and all of the conversations that people were having regarding that is like, I can't wait until we have the opportunity to pair Sincere up with Soul because people were so frustrated and upset with Melanie for how they felt that she was mistreating Sincere. So even though a vast majority of the show is the other way around where Sincere is making choices that really are negatively impacting Melanie, some people still had that original narrative in their mind of Melanie being the person who scorned him and now he's having his opportunity to explore. And we need to reframe that a little bit, right? Because Melanie has a lot of self-awareness, I believe. And even her telling them upfront that the way she deals with a person cheating on her is by cheating back, that lets us know that when Melanie has a perceived threat, if there if she believes that there is another woman that the guy that she's interested in is interested in, that she's going to try to take it 10 times further. She said she cheats back and she cheats worse. So for Melanie, this is a strategy that has worked for her in the past. The difference is that in the real world, you don't have so many eyes on you. In the real world, she could talk to another guy. She could sleep with another guy, and maybe the only people would ever know that are friends that she chose to tell. However, in this situation, you've got cameras on you.

[00:14:13]You've got the villa watching you. You can't even pull somebody for a conversation without the guy you've been talking to also watching you. So I think that's where Melanie started realizing that in this situation there are more repercussions to that strategy and so she started stepping back but by the time she was stepping back it was a little bit too late because at that point America had already coupled soul and since now let's talk about this last season and this season are two of the most watched seasons of Love Island USA.

[00:14:44]So much so that this season the very first vote that we did the app actually crashed. It was that vote for Soul and Sincere that crashed the app. We had to wait to see the recoupling. So, a lot of people were comparing Melanie and Sincere's relationship to Huda and Jeremiah's relationship last season. And so, the problem with that is that a lot of people were expecting a lot bigger of a reaction from Melanie. Some people truly thought they were about to get the entertainment that they got last season with Huda. But what ended up happening instead is that Melanie actually really retreated and course corrected and completely changed her character arc and perception on the show. It was actually masterfully done. Right. I'm not saying that everything was strategic that she did, but I do think that she reflected on how she's coming off and how America is receiving her. The fact that they would pair sincere up with someone other than her. She's like, "Okay, there's something I'm doing where America's comfortable with me being single and vulnerable." In that instance, Corbin saved her. He chose her, and that is how she was able to stay in the villa. Once Soul came into the picture, this is where we started seeing a different side of sincere. So, when Soul came in, remember, America is the one who coupled them up. They saw that connection between him and Soul, and then they were very frustrated with Melanie. So they wanted to really punish Melanie and give an opportunity for sincere and soul to explore their connection. Where he lost a lot of people is with his dishonesty.

[00:16:20]So sincere really had a problem just being very forthcoming with what was happening. Melanie is a very intuitive person. Like I said in my last video, she would ask him directly, "Did you kiss her?" And he would reluctantly be like, "Yeah."

[00:16:36]>> Did you guys kiss and speak easy? coming from a vulnerable place.

[00:16:40]>> Yeah, we did kiss in speak easy.

[00:16:41]>> How many times did you kiss her? Who initiated the kiss?

[00:16:44]>> Who asked for the kiss?

[00:16:46]>> She did.

[00:16:46]>> I didn't ask for that. I didn't ask to kiss her.

[00:16:48]>> Right. So, he's not even making it clear that he and Soul kissed on two separate occasions, right? More than once. They kissed earlier during that day and at night, but he was only admitting to one of those settings. He says later on he'll tell the truth, but not the whole truth. I was telling her half the truth and not the whole truth kind of in fact >> where I was like >> do that bro >> I know I do that all the time >> and we need to talk a little bit about that because the question is are you lying by omission or are you gaslighting and this I think is a debate I'm seeing people talk about these two things without appropriate understanding of the difference between the two because they can be related you can gaslight a person and make them question their reality by line by omission by not sharing certain details and let's keep it all the way real and candid. It wasn't even just lying by omission, right? In some cases, sincere was straight up lying. It's hard to say the situation because he would do it prior to the behaviors, right? So Melanie would say, "Are you interested in still exploring soul?" And he say, "No, I just want a yes or no answer.

[00:17:57]>> Do you want to explore her?"

[00:17:59]>> No. No. Like like >> don't say.

[00:18:02]>> Off the top of my head is no. I believe that's a lie because if 5 minutes later you're kissing her, then that means there was a part of you that at least was still sort of interested. Melanie asked him, "Is he going to kiss Soul again?" He says, "No."

[00:18:14]>> I I did cross the line cuz >> Are you going to keep doing that?

[00:18:16]>> No, I'm not going to keep kissing this woman.

[00:18:18]>> Now, you can make the argument, well, at that time, maybe he felt like he wasn't.

[00:18:21]But being that this happened within a matter of maybe 10 minutes and now you're up there kissing and talking to her for what they said was like the rest of the evening. What does that say about your ability to recognize your own desires and motivations? If you don't know yourself, know your own wants, how can you expect an external person to understand your motivations, desires, and wants and values? Because if you're telling me that in that moment sincere 100% believed that he was never going to explore or kiss soul again and within 10 minutes he's doing that then that tells me he doesn't know himself well enough to be making any promises to another person. Just to be clear lying by omission is withholding information but technically it is not false and sincere did do that a lot of the time. Like for example, in that kissing example, he did say that they kissed more than once, but he did not give the information that it happened in more than one setting.

[00:19:20]Gaslighting, it is actively distorting someone's perception of their own reality or judgment. So, do I believe that Sincere was gaslighting Melanie? I would have said maybe not. But when we got to movie night and sincer clips were shown, he says to Melanie, "You've completely disregarded the things you've done to Corbin."

[00:19:42]>> You're saying the whole summer you look like a fool, but you're like just disregarding what you did to Corbin. How you like you like, >> "What did I do to What did I do to Corbin?"

[00:19:50]>> You do need to be making a person question things that you know are true.

[00:19:55]The only thing Melanie ever did with Corbin was be upfront that she was still struggling with her connection with Sincere and couldn't fully give herself to the connection with Corbin, right?

[00:20:06]But Sincere wanted to make things even by making her question if she'd done something to Corbin. She's like, "What did I do to Corbin?" What I love is that Melanie stood firm in her perspective and she didn't allow him to deter her.

[00:20:20]And I could see in that moment a person who has been gaslit saying to Corbin, "I apologize for anything I did to you."

[00:20:27]She was not buying that. And I appreciated that she didn't allow him to deter it. Now, he was lucky because he had Bryce in his ear telling him, "Hey, you need to just admit that she's right >> cuz it's like, you're not seeing it.

[00:20:40]>> You got to say you just got to say you're right."

[00:20:43]>> So, he kind of had that help. But I'm curious how far he would have gone trying to make her apologetic for things that she hadn't done if he didn't have wiser counsel in his ear. Now, one of the big questions that people have is why does Melanie keep taking sincere back? And some people are trying to say that it's because she has insecurities and low selfworth. I'm a person who often does see that because it's a very real experience. Most of us have insecurities. Most of us have areas that we don't have a lot of self-confidence in and I'm sure Melanie is not exempt from that just like no one else. But I do not think that that is a primary reason why Melanie kept allowing sincere to come back. And it was interesting to even see how sometimes when the girls would console her, Melanie's like that is not even my issue. Like I know movie night Annayia kept saying to Melanie, you weren't crazy. You weren't crazy.

[00:21:36]She was like I never thought I was crazy.

[00:21:39]>> But she know you're not crazy. You're not crazy.

[00:21:41]>> I always know I wasn't crazy.

[00:21:43]>> Like, and they still continue to say it.

[00:21:45]>> Well, Melanie, at the end of the day, you know that you're not crazy.

[00:21:49]>> Right. Like, people were not listening to Melanie when she was trying to let them know the type of support that she needed. And I think that she did a good job holding people accountable, including sincere. Now, I know a lot of us would have felt like a happily ever after would be her saying, "Kick rocks.

[00:22:04]I don't want to have anything to do with you." But that might not be for her what she needs to feel that she's given the connection that she filled with him a chance. That's her story to tell. But I will say that I don't think that that means she has not held sincere accountable at all. I think that there are some things we didn't even see. Like a lot of people didn't even realize that after movie night there was about like a week where Melanie didn't even kiss sincere. We didn't realize that because we don't see their full day. She didn't sleep in bed with him a couple of nights. Even though he was advised to give her the bed if she made that choice and he still didn't.

[00:22:37]>> Dog, you can't keeping up. All right.

[00:22:39]You got to take this as a lesson. You might have to sleep in soul ties tonight. But >> no, I wouldn't.

[00:22:44]>> She'll probably be in there.

[00:22:45]>> If she's in bed, then you get in bed. If she's in soul ties, give her the bed.

[00:22:49]>> You know, those sorts of things showed me more about Sincere's character than it did show me what he's like as a partner. Because I feel that just as a caring person, I think that you know you're the person who has hurt her and you're allowing her to sleep outside while you sleep in a comfy bed inside even though you have already been advised. So you can't even say, "Oh, I didn't even occur to me. I didn't think about that." Right? So there are so many moments like that with sincere when you pay attention where it's kind of like, hm, are you really are you really thinking about Melany's feelings and putting her first or even putting the relationship first? I know some people don't like that. Why should he have to put her first? But the relationship, the relationship trust has been broken at your hands. What are you going to do about it? But we digress. What I believe kept Melanie in this loop with sincere in this cycle is her own guilt. It served as like a trust repair mechanism.

[00:23:44]Melanie got the dramatic label very early and we even see the Islanders who went home some early in the process, some later in the process. It seems like people are always having something to say about Melanie. So, she knows that she has somewhat of a reputation and that people viewed her as dramatic, especially in the beginning, and some would even say disloyal. A lot of people didn't like how she treated not only sincere, but people also didn't like to see the way that she was treating the girls. And I would even see comments where people were like, "See, she said she's not a girl's girl, and it shows."

[00:24:22]>> I don't use the term girls. If you hear that, red flag.

[00:24:25]>> So, the problem is that from early on, Melanie internalized her actions as the root cause of their issues. So even when it came to why sincere and soul were paired up or coupled up in the first place, Melanie realized that it was probably direct result of her actions and that people were frustrated with her and what she had been doing.

[00:24:49]>> I think you guys see me cry about it a million times and I up a lot.

[00:24:54]>> And then the Islanders would say things to her that really reinforce that idea.

[00:24:58]Like I remember Trinity saying to Melanie that sincere is so patient with her and then she's like I'm patient with him.

[00:25:04]>> I [ __ ] with him so heavy and like >> he's so patient with you too, >> baby. I'm patient with him.

[00:25:09]>> Right. So there was a rational part of Melanina's like why am I being painted to be this person that he's got to deal with when I'm having to deal with quite a lot from him. So, because Sincere originally did take Melanie back when he was viewing her as being disrespectful, really always in the frame of a challenge though, right? It was always during a challenge typically. I think that that made Melanie feel that he was worth the same effort. I should be taking him back. He took me back when I messed up. I'm going to take him back when he messed up.

[00:25:42]>> I feel like I have to forgive him because he forgave me. So, we're good.

[00:25:47]We're going to work on it. And this is an issue that I see with a lot of couples is that sometimes that toxic dynamic really comes from a person saying, "Well, I can't hold them too accountable because I'm doing things, too." And sometimes we do that intentionally, subconscious, but intentionally because we don't really want to have to let the person go. And so we just continue to do things that would make it hard for them to forgive us and then they forgive us and we keep this loop going. now they do something, we forgive them and we keep going back and forth. It's a very unhealthy cycle that I see a lot with the couples that I work with. It's basically guilting accountability. So, I think that is part of what the narrative was that kept bringing Melanie back to sincere. And then when she would have those moments where she's like, "No, this isn't right.

[00:26:33]Like, I'm not being treated right."

[00:26:36]People in the villa would say things to her like, "Hey, he really cares about you. He obviously wants to be with you, but do I think he has genuine intentions with you?" 100% do I think >> he is lustful.

[00:26:47]>> And then she would be like, "Okay, yeah, I do need to give this a chance.

[00:26:50]Everybody can see we have a strong connection." America kept voting for them. Their relationship was almost never in jeopardy. The only time it ever was was when Soul and Sincere were voted together. But outside of that, Melanie and Sincere were pretty much always safe. They were never one of the bottom couples. And so it is really interesting to think about the fact that Melanie is getting all these mixed messages both from the votes in America and from her fellow islanders. And even though her intuition might be telling her one thing, she's hearing something else and seeing other things that counter that intuition. I do see people asking why aren't people holding sincere as accountable as they're holding Zach and as they're holding KC. And I think that everyone has their different reasons for how they're doing it. The Islanders versus America. For the Islanders, I think that with Casey, especially Trinity, personally, who happens to be more of the mouthpiece for the girls, she had a personal issue with Casey, right? And that kind of expanded. This is before movie night, before we even knew the disrespectful things that he was saying about Annayia. The Islanders didn't know that. And so, that kind of took things off on its own, right? So, from that point forward, Trinity wasn't really very supportive of Casey and Anna's relationship. Whereas prior to that, she had been once she heard the misinformation about Casey saying that she and Bryce don't deserve to be in the top, which he never said.

[00:28:15]>> Casey, how do you feel about America voting into the top four? Bubs, >> feels good, bro. If they didn't vote me in that would have been hot. I'm the only person that stayed in that relationship. Me and Zach, >> what are you talking about? I've been in the same thing since the beginning.

[00:28:28]>> You have, >> but you almost explored some. That is something that stuck with her, made her not like Casey and made her very comfortable with holding him more accountable than others. The other thing is that when you look at like Casey versus Sincere, Casey was very defensive about what he had done wrong. Now, keep in mind, I do argue that Casey didn't really get an opportunity to advocate for himself. So, we don't know what he would have said. He may have said he was in the wrong. I don't know. But sincere, who was for some reason given a lot more opportunity to speak, sincere typically quickly jumps to he knows he's in the wrong. He's got to make up for it. And he apologizes.

[00:29:12]>> I am like again really sorry for how I did conduct myself. I mean, obviously I'm apologizing to Melanie here and seeing that just makes me feel like really bad because it looks really bad and because it was really bad.

[00:29:24]>> So he doesn't really leave you with much to argue with. And so that made a lot of the Islanders look at Melanie like she was still being difficult or crazy when she would still be so frustrated with sincere because she recognized these are just words. This is you just trying to diffuse the situation. You're not really owning it and taking accountability.

[00:29:45]You're just saying whatever you can so that I don't have a leg to stand on.

[00:29:50]Because I remember even like Zach commenting on the fact that he felt like Melanie kind of ruined the moment of the reconciliation after Kasa because she was so upset with him.

[00:30:01]>> I don't know if you got a in your brain.

[00:30:02]But stop that cuz that is pissing me the off. If you think I'm such a wonderful woman, please act like it. Act like that when I'm not looking at you.

[00:30:11]But the thing about Melanie is she knew she really liked Sincere and she knew Sincere liked her, but she knew that he was not behaving in a way that made him trustworthy and she did not want to be embarrassed. And she knew even without having the full context at that point that he was probably making choices that would continue to embarrass her. And so sincere, I think, got more grace from the Islanders because Melanie was loudly advocating for herself while Sincere was being very quiet and just taking it on the chin. He's not arguing back. And so people just look at that as he's so patient with her versus listening to what she's actually saying. The problem is that, which Melanie noted, that apology unfortunately is not synonymous with behavior change. So sincere will say, "I'm gonna fix this. I'm going to focus on you. And the moment the opportunity presents itself, he contradicts those promises.

[00:31:08]>> That kissing, no, that's not going to happen anymore. I can I can tell you that right now.

[00:31:11]>> We have this consistent rupture and repair loop with them. You have the relationship rupture, which could be Melanie or sincere, some grand romantic repair. I'm sorry. I'm not going to do this. I mean, these are things that both of them said and did. I'm not going to do this anymore. her, you know, they wrote the letters to each other or sincere telling her he wants her to be his girlfriend, fiance, wife, mother of his children or like the breakfast he made for her with the rose petals. Then they get to a point of renewed trust and then we have another rupture and the cycle starts all over again. So with Melanie and sincere, we just kept seeing the same thing playing out over and over again. But I will say that in my most unhealthy relationships, this is a cycle that we always play out. And I get to the point where, you know, I have a diagram for my clients and I'll say, "Tell me where you think you are this week on this diagram." And they might be like, "Grand gesture." Like, "Oh, we just went on this big date." Or, "They just sent me all of these flowers." Or, "We're talking about getting married. We looked at engagement rings together."

[00:32:10]All of these things that are saying, "Hey, we're going to be okay." But then they come to me the next session and we're no longer okay. We're having the same kind of arguments because we're not really resolving the core issue. What real repair requires is consistency over time, behavioral consistency. We need words and actions to match up. And unfortunately, they didn't have enough time to establish that after the second major breach of trust, which was Kasa Amore. So Melanie was having such a hard time even after hearing from her family, hearing from Sincere's family. They do not support the relationship or how sincere has been treating her. You don't test her that. I know you came here to try to find somebody and it's not here, Melanie. I'm telling you, it's not here.

[00:32:58]>> It wasn't enough time to rework her initial experience with him. So, even for those two, right, even for Melanie, she's also dealing with the anchor bias because she's still thinking of sincere how she did at the very beginning. And so is he. He kept saying when Melanie would be in a good mood, it's like this is like the girl I met on the first day, right? Right? So, they're both trying to get back to who they were when they first met. Mind you, it's only been 6 weeks. You know, that's why sometimes it's really easy for people to fall into unhealthy relationships, especially with love bombing. I'm not saying that that's what happened with this couple with love bombing. don't believe that's what happened with this couple, but this is the same sort of mechanism that supports that, which is that you experience this person at their best at the very beginning of the relationship. And that could be like only a month or two or three. And then you got like 5 years of them treating you like a terrible person, but you're still remembering them for who they were those first three months and believing that's the real them and always trying to get back there. If they were to come to me as a couple, I would give them both the opportunity to talk about what they would need to see in 3 months, 6 months, 12 months from each other consistently to rebuild the trust in this relationship. Melanie, we've already seen what's been happening since they've been out of the villa. Like since been mass unfollowing people, maybe that was a boundary Melanie said to him. I need to know you're not following people that you used to talk to or date. Maybe that's part of why he's doing that. Who knows? Or maybe he's just unfollowing people that he thinks he shouldn't be following at this level of fame. Who knows, right? But being able to sit down and really reflect on the gaps and trust and what you would need to see and being firm in the boundary of if we aren't able to stick to this. This was me giving you a chance and I can't move forward. Melanie said, "I know I'll be okay if things don't work out with him."

[00:34:53]And I believe her. They will all be okay. I think with Melanie and Sincere, they had such a unique dynamic that unfortunately a lot of people related to. A lot of communities celebrate what we would consider to be a struggle love.

[00:35:06]That's what we see playing out in movies. And we want to see the people choose each other even though they might have all of these things that the outside world would consider to be toxic traits. And I think Melanie and Sincere really for a lot of people represented that. And that's why they ended up coming in third place on the show. Let me know what your thoughts are as to how they continued to stay on the show and be voted highly because a lot of people are saying, "Oh, it's just the Melanie fans." But I think it was deeper than that. I think there was something specific people wanted to see between Melanie and Sincere in their relationship. And I think that for a lot of people, whether they admitted it or not, they were rooting for them. Let me know which couple you like me to cover next. ask that you like this video, subscribe to my channel, share with anyone who might find it interesting or entertaining or educational, and don't forget to check out Opera Air. I really appreciate you for watching this video all the way until the end. You didn't have to, but the fact that you did helps me out so much. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:36:11]What's on your mind?