Married at First Sight’s Dean painfully mansplains mum life to wife Tracey
Tuesday night’s episode of Married At First Sight delivered the usual face-palm-inducing clangers, amongst which was resident villain Dean’s bossy-yet-detached theories on parenting.
Trapped on a boat
Frustratingly trapped on a boat with quite rightly teary “wife” Tracey, Dean felt his relationship slowly sinking and possibly asked himself why he’d planned a date he could not easily escape from. (Perhaps he got the idea from The Bachelor, a boat-riddled show he possibly entertains ideas of being the focus of? We think he does.)
Realising there was no way out, Dean chose to distract his partner with cheery promises of a wonderful future together. Well. They weren’t really cheery actually. They were more like hastily-grasped straws and Dean served them up to Tracey accompanied by a series of disconcerting jaw-quivers and tics.
“I’ll be there as well …”
“I’m looking for a partner to have kids with,” Dean offered, jaw clenched, head quivering, the word salad beginning to spill from his lips with visible discomfort.
“I want my wife to be there for our kids and taking care of our kids,” he rambles, sighs and twitches. “That’s how I would always see that working, anyway.”
“I’ll be there as well …” he trails off unconvincingly, appearing to search for a canoe.
“But my wife would definitely be very responsible for raising the children,” he snaps back.
“And I think that’s the right way for it to be done,” he finally concludes with a sort of invisible question mark, more of a dare than a declaration.
False promises?
As viewers leant closer to the screen and wondered what year it was, Tracey was unexpectedly bolstered by Dean’s words. Bamboozled and exhausted, she just wants to know she can trust Dean and that he’s not going to break her heart. He’s worn her down.
A red-eyed Tracey explained that Dean’s view of parenting offered the security she so dearly needed.
“It’s very reassuring to hear,” Tracey tells Dean after hearing his parenting plan, “because you know I’m very old fashioned and I do have old fashioned values about being a stay-at-home mum for the first few years.”
“It’ll be nice to be in a position like I was with my daughter, to not have to worry about work. I do have very old fashioned values when it comes to that,” she says hopefully.
Creating a diversion
Let us just say that being a stay-at-home mum is a wonderful choice, for those who choose that path. We’re not critiquing this decision at all.
What we do have an issue with is the way Dean brushed an obviously struggling Tracey’s feelings aside.
And the way he dictated some hastily strung-together dot points on parenting to her, alpha-dude style, rather than asking her about her view of parenthood.
And the way he just did not listen to her at all.
And the fact that, in the end, Dean used the promise of having kids together to distract Tracey from his consistently obnoxious behaviour.
Dean didn’t want to be stuck on a boat talking about what a tool he’d been. Much better to destabilise and manipulate Tracey by focusing on promises of security and babies and soulmates instead.
What. A. Guy. Ugh.
Did you watch MAFS last night? What did you think about Dean’s baby diversion? Do you want to punch Dean in the neck? Let us know on Facebook.
