What do a plate of oxtail, a leaked Spotify playlist, a Brussels sprouts recipe, and two shamrock tattoos have in common? Believe it or not, they’re all at the center of some spectacular sapphic showdowns in The Ultimatum: Queer Love Season 2.
This season, six queer couples enter the dating experiment to determine whether they’re ready for the biggest romantic milestone: marriage. They temporarily split up, date one another, form some of the most complicated love triangles you’ve ever witnessed, commit to trial marriages with someone new, and finally come back together. And, yes, a lot of couple-swapping chaos ensues.
Now that the reunion has come to a close, where do these couples stand? Keep reading to find out who stayed together after the reunion, if any of the ex-trial wives are still on speaking terms, and what’s happened to that food truck now that a certain two people have parted ways.
When Britney signed on to The Ultimatum: Queer Love, she wasn’t looking for a new love story — she was trying to protect the one she already had. After five years with AJ, Britney issued an ultimatum in search of clarity. “AJ is the absolute love of my life and I’ve known that for years,” she tells Tudum after the reunion. “In the beginning [of the relationship] we were talking about marriage quite a bit, then as time went on and things actually should start to be that, it wasn’t.” She says the experiment felt like a chance to reset: “It aligned with our life at the time. It just fit.”
Though Britney initially connected with other singles — Magan and Mel were her top picks — it was the unexpected pairing with Marita that shifted her entire experience. Despite some initial tension, Britney says, it was quickly evident when they moved into the apartment that she didn’t feel “any type of way.” What unfolded was a deeply supportive friendship: “Me and Marita had a really great trial marriage. I loved it.”
By the end of the experiment, Britney and AJ reunited with genuine joy before eventually getting engaged. “I was just honestly just so happy to be with my baby,” she says. “It felt so electrifying to just be back with her.” For Britney, their issues didn’t disappear overnight, but the pair had something others didn’t: “We were going into our trial marriage with the same issues we came into the show with. [Other couples] also had issues that occurred in their trial marriages.”
Since filming, Britney and AJ are focused on doing the work — individually and as a couple — to build the life they’ve been dreaming about. “We’ve been going to church more often, spending more time with God,” she says. “Just trying to get ourselves prepared to fuse our lives together. I want to start a family. I want to be a present partner.” That future might include a Seattle wedding.
Britney’s relationship with Marita has also endured. “That is a wifey for lifey and AJ knows that, and [Marita’s] future partner’s going to know that, too,” she says with a laugh. “She has done nothing but love on me, encouraged me. She’s a very kind and genuine soul in my life.” The two live a few hours apart and still make time to see each other. As for the reunion? Britney had a few lingering questions about Marie’s tone and comments. “I just don’t understand what she was trying to tell me, to be honest,” she says. “Just say it.” Ultimately, Britney is choosing to lead with empathy, adding, “I feel for Marie so much and I’ve always, always had love for Marie.”
These days, Britney is back in Orlando running her business, deepening her nursing skills, and building a foundation for the future. As for what’s ahead, Britney wants “to better both [herself and AJ] as individuals and also as a couple,” she says. “So when we’re married, we truly actually bond ourselves together, then we have more of a free slate, clean plate, and are the best versions of ourselves.” Also important: she brought her full spice rack with her to Miami. She says the oxtail she made for Marita “wasn’t even my best work,” but in the end both of them were well-fed in more ways than one.
AJ is still doing AJ. In fact, she says her biggest revelation is that she’s exactly enough. “If AJ’s showing up 100%, that’s all I could ever ask of myself,” she tells Tudum. “People are going to take it and leave it.” And Britney, the love of AJ’s life, is happily taking it. “Our relationship has literally soared,” AJ shares. Always one to express affection for her partner in the most poetic way possible, AJ says that the two have become so close that they’re “skin on skin at this point.” One change that has led to that closeness is their focus on staying present with one another, which they’ve maintained through more open communication.
It took AJ time to open up about her concerns over Britney’s work-life balance because she never wanted to seem unsupportive of her partner’s ambition. Once she realized she could share her feelings and needs, however, Britney was there to listen and eagerly do the same in return. “When she comes home, she’ll communicate with me and say, ‘Hey, I need to do these three things or X amount of tasks. Are you OK with that?’ AJ explains. “Once she’s done, it’s close the laptop, ‘Baby, I’m home. What are we doing?’ ”
AJ shared at the reunion that it was Marita who helped her become more comfortable asking for what she needs from her partner. Throughout the experiment, Marita made her desire for romance very clear, and as her trial wife, Britney delivered. “Britney was that person for me at one point in time,” says AJ, adding that when Britney started her business, their dynamic changed. “Marita showed me that Britney genuinely can put things aside, if you’re just more vocal.” With all the support both she and Britney have received from Marita, AJ affectionately refers to her as her “middle wifey.” “We are a throuple at this point,” she jokes. “I tell her all the time how grateful I am for her.”
Sadly, the same can’t be said of AJ’s relationship with her own trial wife, Marie. While she admits that watching Marie’s experience was “extremely difficult,” she says that the way Marie showed up to the reunion demonstrated that she still has a lot of work to do. “We hold space for Marie in the sense that what she went through was hard and especially the fact that she had to find out that Mel was lying this entire time. That’s difficult,” AJ explains. “But what I can’t give grace for is you putting the blame on me, putting the blame on Dayna. Let’s stop putting the blame [elsewhere] and look at the common denominator.”
AJ understands that Marie is hurt that she didn’t receive support from her ex during their trial marriage. But, according to AJ, she only saw Britney twice throughout that phase of the experiment, and she checked in with Marie to see if she was comfortable. Still, AJ is not holding resentment. “I truly think that Marie is an incredible person, and I really hope that she finds whatever she’s looking for,” she shares. “If she ever called me, I’d pick up the phone because again, nobody deserves what she had to go through.”
As for her day-to-day life with Britney, the two recently moved into an apartment and have been discussing the idea of getting another pup. Plus, they’re spending lots of time with Britney’s brother and his girlfriend, who live close by. “We actually do family dinners every Sunday and that is a must,” she says. “Britney and I have been really enjoying the quiet as of now.”
Bridget was drawn to the experiment for the opportunity to see how others function in romantic relationships, and apply that insight to her own. “As a writer and as somebody who likes to see different worlds, I had a lot of curiosity,” she tells Tudum. Through her time with Ashley, Bridget realized her romantic partner could also be a teammate in life. “With Ashley, we would plan our meals and go grocery shopping together,” she shares. “Kyle and I can both be independent, and it was really nice to see that Ashley enjoys making it feel more like you’re in it together.” Kyle experienced the same in her trial marriage with Pilar, which has in turn informed how she shows up for Bridget. “She really did learn what it’s like to be in a long-term relationship. You are always considering your partner in everything that you do,” says Bridget.
Since their time in the experiment, the two have moved in together, and Kyle has taken the lead on establishing special rituals within their relationship, which makes Bridget feel loved. “We do a Sunday check-in, we do a date night once a week, and we like to try somewhere new once a month. All of that is her doing. I give her a lot of credit for that,” Bridget says. “Neither one of us really cares as much about grand gestures. I think it’s just these smaller moments.”
Reflecting on the journey, Bridget is proud to have shared her experience as a gender-fluid couple with viewers. “There’s no representation for people who look like us in the queer community on TV,” she says. Though she’s dated people across the gender spectrum, Bridget says that she typically gravitates toward people who fall somewhere in the middle, like herself. “I like people who can express both of those parts of themselves.”
But Bridget and Kyle’s similarities can cause problems in their relationship as well. Bridget refers to the kiss that Kyle and Pilar shared at the club as “a turning point” in their relationship, one which prompted her and Kyle to confront their tendencies to passivity. “We realized we need to discuss things more in detail and figure out how we can express our boundaries better,” she explains.
According to Bridget, a few moments from their relationship were left on the cutting room floor. In one, she and Kyle discussed the challenges they would likely face as a couple and their hopes for the future. In another, Bridget even popped the question to Kyle after Kyle’s proposal to her in the finale, which she feels was emblematic of her growth throughout the experiment. “It was a lot to get me to that point,” Bridget admits. There was also a special date, in which the couple got to try out a hobby that fans will remember Bridget bringing up many times: glassblowing. “It was so much fun,” she says. “Our relationship revolves a lot around creating art together.”
Another big creative project the couple will soon take on together is a wedding. “We have a vision for what we want it to look like,” Bridget says. “I really love the desert, so somewhere in Joshua Tree would be very cool.” Since there’s no rush, they don’t have a date yet. They have decided to only include their closest friends and family, which means their fellow participants likely won’t get an invite. But that’s not because they’re harboring any ill will. “Having that shared experience really bonds you,” Bridget says. “Anything that we were upset about while on the show, we got over it.”
Speaking of Bridget and Kyle’s wedding, the two have had to keep the news under wraps since filming ended. “We haven’t planned anything,” says Kyle. “We’ve been waiting to celebrate the engagement publicly and get to enjoy that without being sort of secretive.” One person, however, is eager to start celebrating: Kyle’s mom, a breakout star of the season. “She wants to throw a party, which she’ll probably do later this summer,” Kyle says.
Rarely does a parent arrive on the scene of a reality dating show and make such an impact, but Kyle’s mom is not just any parent. The unconditional love she showed her daughter was literally contagious, moving Kyle’s trial wife, Pilar, whose family has not been as accepting, to tears. “My parents have been so supportive and so loving of me no matter what,” says Kyle. “It was really touching to have my mom talk to her that way because my parents are very loving, but we haven’t really even gone into depth about my own queerness.”
Kyle says she was initially drawn to Pilar because of their easy conversation and her lengthy relationship with Haley. “I felt like I could learn a lot from her. She was very responsible, and she really had a lot of experience in building a life with Haley. I felt like we understood each other very quickly.” That understanding, however, was derailed after a night of clubbing and an off-camera kiss. Watching the moment back, Kyle wishes she had handled herself better in the aftermath. “I just wanted to shake myself and be like, you aren’t doing a good job of explaining how you’re feeling or taking accountability for what happened.”
Kyle and Pilar’s bond fizzled from there, and unfortunately, the two didn’t leave on the best of terms. Aside from a couple of “happy birthday texts,” they didn’t speak between the time filming wrapped and the reunion. “I think going back with Bridget and having to deal with the fallout of my actions, it was just sort of like, I’m not going to communicate with Pilar because I really want Bridget and I to get to a safe and trusting spot,” says Kyle. “And Pilar and my relationship just kind of deteriorated.” Fortunately, that changed after a “healing” reunion. “Both of us probably let go of a lot of the baggage of what happened between us,” Kyle says. “So now I feel like we're on really good terms. I hope we can have a friendship in the future.”
Like Bridget, Kyle wishes fans got to see their relationship develop from “stagnant” to “strength” by the end of their journey. “You didn’t get to see the touching conversations, the growth that we had, and how Bridget came to the conclusion about her decision to be accepting of marriage.” In addition, Kyle forged another bond that may surprise fans: “I have a strong friendship with Marie you didn’t see on the show, but we went fairly far in the dating week, so we had longer dates, and I just feel for her a lot. And so we stayed in contact a bit, and we were in Orlando at the beginning of this year and we were able to see her. I really love Marie so much.”
At the reunion, Marie sits on the opposite side of the room from Mel, illustrating that their relationship has shifted dramatically in the year since filming the finale. Marie called off their engagement “a couple months” after the experiment because her priorities no longer aligned with her partner’s. As she put more time into herself, she realized she was more invested in the idea of growing a family than growing the food truck business.
“I started trying to do things a little bit more individual. I didn’t want to do food truck as much as I needed to. I know the person who I had said yes to was very hesitant on many different reasons,” Marie says at the reunion before revealing that she had long been aware of Mel’s inability to have kids due to her medical condition. Now, she’s fully moved on from running the food truck but knows that the business she helped build will continue to thrive. “You don’t need me,” she tells Mel.
Marie shares that “ironically” she had not seen any episodes before breaking up with Mel, implying that there were other issues in their relationship. “How embarrassing would that have been?” she says at the thought of still being engaged to Mel as the show was released. On the reunion couches, Marie confronts Dayna about whether she had already “hooked up” with her ex by the time the two shared a deep conversation about Dayna and Mel’s trial marriage at one of the cocktail parties. Dayna explains that, at that point, they had only kissed. Marie nonetheless appears to feel betrayed not just by her former partner, but by someone she had considered a friend in the experiment.
One person who was a friend to her during it all, however, was Haley. After initially expressing disappointment in Haley for bringing up the shared Spotify playlist as “proof” that Dayna and Mel had been physically intimate, Marie comes to Haley’s defense at the reunion when Dayna says the playlist was no one else’s business. “I don’t think it’s fair for Haley because whatever the case may be, something did happen. Period,” she says.
As for Marie’s relationship with AJ, the two have not remained emotionally close since their own trial marriage — though they do live just “20 minutes down the street” from each other. While Marie maintains that she isn’t mad that AJ and Britney supported each other during the experiment, she does ask for empathy for the fact that she didn’t get the same from her own ex. As she points out, her ex didn’t even acknowledge her existence during that part of the experience. Still, Marie doesn’t regret her time being trial-married to AJ. “I’m grateful for what it was,” she says. “I learned a lot throughout that period of time.”
After a long-term romantic and professional partnership with Marie and an intense trial marriage with Dayna, Mel is keeping things very casual. “I did this thing even before Marie, with a lot of my relationships, where I just jump in and if the other person wants things that I don't want, I'll just go with it and brush it off until it becomes an issue,” Mel tells Tudum. That, of course, is what ultimately led Marie to break off their engagement following the finale. Throughout the experiment and immediately after, Mel has worked to separate what she could get used to from what she actually wants in a relationship going forward.
Viewers got a peek into the couple’s difficult journey, but Mel insists she was happier with Marie than she may have appeared during the experiment. That struck her when she watched the show back and barely ever saw herself smile. “I knew I was very unsure,” she explains. “But we had great times.” One of their more difficult moments, though, was when Marie confronted Mel in the car about being physically intimate with Dayna. Looking back, Mel wishes she had been more direct. “I was very caught off guard. I didn’t know what I was walking into, I didn’t know I was going to see her,” Mel says, adding that she did eventually confess exactly what happened between her and Dayna.
Since the reunion, Mel and Marie have been keeping each other at a “distance,” but they have interacted because their lives are still somewhat “intertwined” through apartment leases and shared cat custody. Mel believes they’re in a temporary period of transitioning from romantic partners back to just friends. “[Marie] knows if she ever needs anything, I’ll be there. If I ever really, really needed something, I would assume she would be there as well,” she shares. “I don't think that she really is at a place where she doesn’t want anything to do with me. We still have a love for each other because, even before dating, we were friends for 10 years … We don’t remember what it’s like just being friends.”
Mel doesn’t see herself being friends with Dayna, however. “When I was in that trial marriage with her, we were like, ‘Okay, we’re going to be in each other’s lives no matter what.’ Then, looking back, I learned even though I may want somebody like that in my life, it’s not the healthiest thing,” Mel says. “I don't think we have any bad blood between each other currently, but I wouldn't call her a friend personally.” Dayna does still occupy space in Mel’s life — or at least on her body. Mel shares that, the two settled on the infamous shamrock tattoo to symbolize how lucky they felt to have found one another. When asked about the tattoo, Mel says, “I'm definitely going to keep it,” though it’s now more a reminder of the unique experience, and less her relationship with Dayna. Mel also still has that shared Spotify playlist saved, but insists she doesn’t listen to it. “I got to keep my receipts. You never know.”
Now, Mel’s priority is her business, Royal-T Tapas, which she runs by herself in addition to working her day job. Before filming the show, she and Marie had sold their first food truck and were in the process of having a larger one built. By the time it was done, they had broken up, which made the upgrade “bittersweet.” “This was always my dream, and Marie always supported that for me and wanted it with me.” Though she has since hired a few employees, Mel says keeping the business going without Marie has been “really hard.” But, there is a permanent homage to their relationship on the menu. Mel says that anyone in the world who comes to her food truck can order those brussels sprouts. She makes it very clear that Marie did not teach her how to make them, but they did perfect the recipe together.
Magan and Dayna are still happily engaged, but they haven’t set a wedding date just yet. First, they want to make sure everyone in their lives is comfortable, especially Magan’s parents. Throughout the experiment, Magan was on the phone with them frequently, which helped shift the family dynamic. “When we came back, we knew things had to change and we knew things were going to change,” she says at the reunion. “It took a few tries for Dayna and my mom to understand each other, but it happened.”
Since then, Dayna celebrated Thanksgiving with Magan’s family, and the couple is planning for all their parents to meet very soon. They just need to navigate how they all react to seeing their daughters’ onscreen journeys. “We didn’t expect our situations to be as dramatic as they were,” Magan admits, adding that they had hoped the show would give her parents the opportunity to see their relationship “in a different light.” Despite the drama, Magan is confident that she and Dayna — and their families — will get through it. And isn’t that fitting, since confidence is clearly Magan’s most significant takeaway from this experience?
Haley played a major role in helping her develop a stronger sense of self, she acknowledges. “She was a really good listener,” Magan says of her first trial wife. “She helped me process things because she and I operate the same way. I found a lot of clarity talking to her.” At the reunion, Magan also clarifies that she had love for Haley, but she was not in love with Haley. The plan was always to be in one another’s lives after the experiment, but given that they had explored physical intimacy, everything became too complicated. “Honestly, I really wish that we didn’t take things so far because Haley would be an amazing friend to me,” she explains.
The messiness between Magan and Haley didn’t prevent her from forming lasting bonds with others in the experiment. Magan and Dayna are now especially close with AJ and Britney and have visited them a few times. “We never felt like you guys took sides,” Magan tells the couple on the reunion couch.
When it comes to the relationships she and Dayna built individually, Magan is at peace. “When Dayna and I come together, we have a certain type of energy together. And when her and Mel came together, they had their own type of energy. I also exhibited a different energy than what Dayna and I have with Haley, and we both leaned into it,” Magan says. “Now we’re just understanding how to be better partners and what we need individually.”
Dayna knows she still has a lot of work to do on herself. “Watching myself back was painful. I thought I was a very self-aware person,” she shares at the reunion. “You don’t ever get to experience looking at yourself like that.” But it wasn’t just seeing herself in the experiment that helped Dayna grow. After years of wanting nothing more than for her partner Magan to believe in herself, Dayna realized she herself was also holding on to a fear of being misunderstood. That came to light when Magan finally asked her to spend time with her family. “Now I have to be brave one,” explains Dayna. “[It’s] hard, to go somewhere where you’re not wanted or maybe going to be rejected.” Through that discomfort, she has come to better understand Magan — and Magan’s family.
Though Dayna learned a lot from the experiment, she says she feels “ashamed” that the journey was messier than expected, and has concerns about how it might affect Magan’s family now that they’re all in a good place. Dayna and Magan hoped the experiment would be a way for them to show Magan’s family that queer people are “normal” and can have good relationships. “It’s sad that now they’re going to have to deal with the opposite of that, which is repercussions of my behavior,” she says.
But Dayna is taking responsibility for that behavior. From the reunion stage, she apologizes to Marie for acting so friendly with her while not being upfront about her romantic connection with Marie’s ex, Mel. “Seeing your pain was really, genuinely so hard,” she says. “It was delusional at the time to think that, with everything that had happened, there was an appropriate point of having a friendship. It wasn’t fair to you.” Still, Dayna maintains that she and Mel did not have sex during their trial marriage — and that whatever did unfold between them is no one’s business. “This is between me and Mel and whoever we share our personal lives with,” she states firmly. “Me and Magan have had our own conversations.”
After the experiment, she reached out to Mel, who didn’t respond for two months. No longer having Mel play a prominent role in her life only makes Dayna value their shared shamrock tattoo more. “Anyone who’s had a connection with their trial partner, it is a very deep connection,” she explains, adding that she doesn’t regret having a “meaningful, symbolic representation” of that. Although Dayna admits they probably should have come up with a less dramatic way of memorializing their time together. “We could’ve maybe got like a henna.”
Now that she’s officially single, Marita’s dating profile features a very simple message for any potential match: “Get beyond the bare minimum and maybe we can talk.”
Through her trial marriage with Britney, Marita discovered how important it is not to settle. “If you are obsessed with love, you shouldn't be embarrassed about that … I loved Ashley more than air, but at the same time there was a part of me that was not being fulfilled,” she explains. It wasn’t just Britney’s romantic gestures, like cooking up oxtail or bringing home flowers, that showed Marita it’s OK to want more from a partner. Together, they spent a lot of time talking about how love should feel. “The entire time, it was just the energy of like, ‘Wow, she’s special, and she knows what she brings to the table,’ but wait a minute, I’m special too.” Now, Marita won’t let anyone pursue her unless “they are made of pure gold.”
Marita says she only ever got the romance she craved from her partner when Ashley needed something. “She would do anything to make me feel special, but that was only if she needed to borrow my car or if she needed rent money,” she says. “She would manipulate loving me because she knew that’s exactly what I would hold on to.” There were times throughout their relationship when Marita was ready to call it quits because she realized she and Ashley expressed and received love in totally different ways, but every time, Ashley would beg her to stay. “She didn’t want to start over with someone. She didn’t want to go through the motions of dating or finding another person,” explains Marita. “I was the love of her life because I was giving her everything but not getting that in return.”
That pattern continued even after Ashley didn’t propose at the end of the experiment, which devastated and confused Marita. She says that Ashley showed up at her hotel the next day, with Marita’s car packed for a couple’s trip. The two did go on that vacation, and according to Marita, they eventually officially got back together. But of course, things fell apart again when Ashley “started building [a] new relationship,” while Marita was home in California dealing with the death of her grandfather.
The cheating was the final straw. And, the cheating — along with Marie’s unexpectedly hostile interjections — was what made her blow up at the reunion. “I will say I felt really bad for some of the things that I said, so I apologize on behalf of that, but I would stand by the fact that it was deserved,” Marita shares, adding that the two spoke privately after the reunion and that Ashley took responsibility for mistreating her. “Ashley’s not a terrible person. I just think she truly has insecurities about love, and she's been through some shit. But it’s awful because my energy was literally being sucked out of me every single day.”
Since cutting ties with Ashley last fall, Marita says she’s been “thriving.” “I’m finally able to be myself again,” she says, which has led her to delve deeper into her creative side, writing and getting back into music. She’s even been participating in a local singing competition series. “I have met the best people in the entire world, I’m dating, I'm happy, and I got a new job,” she says. “I feel like I'm just in the best place in my life, truly. And I think it's because I finally decided to choose myself.”
Ashley is still reeling from a “pretty chaotic” reunion with her ex Marita. Not only did she have to revisit a painful breakup, but she was also thinking of her grandmother, who died shortly after the reunion. “That was just a really tough weekend,” Ashley tells Tudum. “The emotions really came from my grandma and then Marita screaming that she hates me. I would never say something like that to her. The whole thing was shocking. In the five years I’ve known that girl, she has never treated me like that or acted that way.”
So, where did Marita’s anger come from? As Ashley sees it, the duo were in an extremely rocky place before the proposal day. Their teary conversation on the couch, in which Marita expressed she wasn’t getting what she needed, was their final moment together during the experiment — on and off camera. “I went into [the proposal] not feeling 100% on that decision. I knew the whole time I didn’t want to lose her, and [there] was never a thought in my head that I would,” says Ashley. But as the ultimatum giver, Ashley felt thrown by the expectations Marita had surrounding the proposal. “It just felt like she wanted me to answer my own ultimatum. That’s where I was frustrated, and I was like, ‘I just can’t do this.’ ”
After filming wrapped, the two jetted off to Key West for a few days. But they never officially got back together, according to Ashley; both agreed that therapy would have to be a key first step in their reconciliation. Once they got back home, however, Marita went into “no contact” mode with Ashley. “She just really shut it down and blocked me on everything from June until September [of last year],” Ashley says. In the meantime, Ashley attempted to forge ahead on her own as a single woman, moving into her own place in St. Petersburg, Florida. “There was a lot of healing I was doing because I was like, ‘We’re done. She doesn’t want me back anymore,’ ” Ashley says. But the tight-knit community made it hard to fully detach. “One night we just drunkenly talked, and she came back to my place and then we just decided to try and work on things again.”
This time, however, Ashley was the one to pull back. “I started getting over [her] and realizing my self-worth,” she recalls. Ashley was already planning a move to Denver, where she now lives. “I told her, ‘I’m not even going to be in the same city as you anymore. We can see what happens, but right now I just don’t want to be anything.’ ” Settling into a new city, Ashley started dating other people, including exploring a connection with the woman Marita references during the reunion. Ashley admits that she did have the opportunity to share that development with Marita when the two spoke in person after Marita’s grandfather died, but she chose not to, given the circumstances. “It was not the time or place for me to do that," she says. “But I should have just sat down and told her face-to-face.”
When Marita found out about the woman, “all hell broke loose,” according to Ashley, even though the exes never officially got back together. “She flipped out on me, started bashing me, posting TikToks about me and blocking me on everything. I had no way to contact her. She went as far as blocking me on LinkedIn, everything.”
After the tense reunion, however, the two met up again and were able to have a productive conversation, taking tentative steps toward an amicable relationship. Meanwhile, Ashley is processing the feelings of resentment and low self-esteem that caused her to join the experiment in the first place. “I never felt like I was worth it for her,” she recalls, claiming that Marita was unfaithful multiple times throughout their relationship.
Marita and Ashley may not have exited the experiment as a couple, but Ashley emerged with a restored sense of self. “I’m making new friendships and realizing, ‘Oh, people actually do like me.” Ashley absolutely counts her trial wife Bridget as one of those new friends and the two still speak regularly. She’s trying to learn how to date again, but hesitant to dive into anything serious yet. “Lesbians are scary,” she says, laughing. “But there is someone else I’ve been kind of seeing.” When it is time for something long-term, Ashley wants to find someone who accepts her unconditionally. “I want to be with someone who is going to choose me for me,” she says. “I may not be perfect, I may not give you everything, but I want someone who can just see what they have in front of them.”
After years of being “at war” with herself, Pilar is finally letting go. Through the experiment, she realized she had been projecting negative emotions onto a potential wedding to Haley — sadness about her family not being there, shame over her section of loved ones seeming empty, and guilt about not inviting her family despite knowing they almost certainly wouldn’t be supportive. Once she recognized how much pressure she was putting on what is supposed to be a celebration, Pilar had to make peace with herself. “I just feel so much lighter and free, and it took this experience to really look in a mirror and sit with all this trauma that I hadn't unpacked in myself,” she says.
Facing her emotional baggage head-on meant finally having hard conversations with her parents. When Pilar told her parents that she and Haley were engaged, her father’s response was a neutral “Thanks for letting us know.” This time Pilar pushed for more clarity. “It started with me saying, ‘You guys say you love me, but these are just words. I need to understand what does that mean?’ ” Pilar says. Her parents confirmed that they couldn’t “endorse” her relationship with Haley because of their religious views.
Even though it wasn’t the answer she’d hoped for, receiving a straight answer finally enabled Pilar to draw a clear boundary with her parents. She told them that she loves them but that she can’t have a relationship with them until they accept every part of her. “I’ve never been in a mental space to say that to them, and I got crickets for a month or two,” she says. Eventually, though, they did reach out again, and now Pilar and Haley are planning to meet with her parents together in person.
Pilar admits that the emotional connection that Haley formed with Magan was “very difficult” for her as well, but they managed to work through it during their own trial marriage. “That first week was hell. It was hard conversation after hard conversation. We weren’t seeing each other, and it was just hours of ‘How do we get past this?’ ” Pilar says. “When Haley made it clear that it was always about us, the last two weeks were about her prioritizing me, showing up for me, and choosing me. That’s all I ever wanted to see.”
The start of her trial marriage with Haley wasn’t the only challenging part of Pilar’s experience. She calls the misunderstanding she had with Kyle over that nightclub kiss “a hard situation to navigate.” “I was hurting because of how it was being portrayed,” she says. “There were just so many conversations on camera versus off camera, and I was like, ‘I just want both of us to take accountability for what happened. We’re two adults that kissed multiple times at the club.’ ” Pilar says she felt it was “a very mutual thing” until the cameras began rolling once again.
The switch-up had Pilar second-guessing everything. “Was I misreading this entire situation? I’m replaying every scenario in my head: ‘When we held hands, did I hold her hand first? Was she not actually into it?’ ” she says. It was Haley who helped pull her out of the spiral. “I sent her a text saying, ‘I’m not OK,’ and I briefly explained the situation. That was when she was like, ‘Hey, you know who you are. Don’t doubt yourself.’ ” When they finally reunited in person, Pilar says she and Haley hashed out the situation for “hours and hours”: “She helped remind me who I am.”
Though Pilar and Kyle were able to end their trial marriage on a “good note,” they didn’t speak in the year after the experiment, so the chance to discuss everything at the reunion gave Pilar a sense of closure. Afterward, Pilar, Haley, Kyle, and Bridget hung out together for the better part of an evening. “It was just peace in my heart because I really have so much love and respect for both of them,” she says, adding that she’s looking forward to seeing if a friendship could blossom between them all in the future.
Thanks to the internal work she did during the experiment, Pilar is also more excited than ever about her creative pursuits, especially DJing and producing music. “I’ve felt more free and confident with my music and putting myself out there,” she says. “Just being seen is a lot less scary now.”
Since the reunion, Haley has continued to make an effort to show Pilar that she’s her No. 1 priority, and she’s done that by leaning into communication. “We truly talk about everything,” she says. “No conversation has a time limit and nothing is taboo between us.” That includes the connection Haley formed with Magan while in her first trial marriage, which is something the couples still openly discusses. “We’ve had the same conversations multiple times, and it's just always about, if you want more support, if you want more understanding around this thing, I want to give it to you because you’re my partner.” Before the experiment, Haley and Pilar broached the possibility of exploring physical intimacy with others ahead of their first trial marriages. “We felt like we could get through anything, so we were like, if you feel like you have a romantic or physical connection, you can feel comfortable to pursue that,” Haley says. “We would give each other the respect of being honest about it, emotional preparedness, and support.”
Looking back on her journey, Haley says she can now understand why Magan abruptly cut off communication with her after their trial marriage, despite the fact that they’d agreed to remain in each other’s lives. “She always knew not to expect me to leave Pilar. How would it feel to still have a friendship after we crossed whatever boundaries that we crossed?” Haley says. “But honestly, I do respect her for putting Dayna first and saying this is something that I need in my relationship to move forward. It was just surprising.”
Because she and Magan didn’t leave the experiment on speaking terms, Haley was incredibly nervous ahead of the reunion. But she was again surprised by how things played out — this time, pleasantly so. “I really attribute it to Dayna showing an incredible amount of growth and being very open, honest, and vulnerable, and kind of saying that she also didn’t love the way that their story came off,” she says. “It made all of us realize we’re not so different and we don’t have to be on different teams. We’re both very happy in our relationships so we don’t have to fight about this. We can just have peace. I was grateful for that.”
Still, Haley doesn’t think she and Magan will be best friends anytime soon. “At this point, we can both appreciate the growth we had during our time together because it’s made us better for our respective partners,” Haley says. “I don’t feel like there’s tension there. If at some point in the future we become friends, great. If not, we’re also happy for each other.”
One thing that’s definitely going to happen sooner rather than later is a marriage ceremony between Haley and Pilar. “We want to have a big beautiful wedding, but that takes time and planning, and I don’t want to wait to be official,” Haley says. “I did feel pretty safe being a queer person the last 10 years, but now to feel like all of that progress that was made is not being reflected in the path forward [in this country]. It does make me really concerned.” Luckily, Pilar and Haley have a close friend who’s an ordained minister, and they live near plenty of parks where they can potentially tie the knot at a moment’s notice. “Pilar and I talk about it a couple times a week,” Haley says. “We just need to put the details down and do it.”
