Married at First Sight couple Jamie Otis and Doug Hehner have made it five years together, and now they're recalling the tough times they had to overcome.
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"This is a milestone that I don't take lightly," Doug, a 36-year-old software salesman, told the New York Post.
Doug and Jamie have the longest-running marriage stem from the franchise, although there are only three other successful couples who starred on Seasons 1 through 7. (Season 8 is currently airing on Lifetime and viewers have yet to see "Decision Day.")
"This is the longest relationship that I've been in in my life," said Doug, who currently lives with Jamie in Monmouth County, NJ.
While Doug insists Married at First Sight "can create a fairy tale," according to the Post, his relationship with Jamie started off extremely rocky.
In fact, after watching the couple's wedding, the majority of fans believed Jamie and Doug wouldn't last.
"I had a panic attack," Jamie, 32, recalled of her experience marrying Doug.
The couple said Doug was "sweating" and "twitching" at the altar, and when he saw Jamie for the first time, he was ecstatic.
"I couldn't have been happier, seeing someone that was just absolutely gorgeous," Doug said.
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But Jamie, a registered nurse who appeared on Ben Flajnik's season of The Bachelor in 2012, had the opposite reaction when focusing her eyes on her new husband.
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Jamie said during her season she simply wasn't attracted to Doug, and she worried she had made the worst decision of her life.
"I wanted a fairy tale instantaneously," Jamie told the Post.
"I] really thought that when I saw whoever the guy was... there'd be, like, chemistry or butterflies. There was nothing. No fireworks."
Jamie was convinced after her wedding that she had made a huge mistake, and so she fell on the floor and burst into tears.
"I was certain this was not going to work out, which was closed-minded, unfair and shallow," Jamie admitted.
But after producers and her bridesmaids talked her into giving the relationship and the show a chance, Jamie mustered up some courage and continued with the experiment.
"I could tell he was a great guy [at the wedding reception]," Jamie recalled.
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Doug said they spent the whole night talking, and Jamie looked fondly back on the moment her husband rubbed her feet on the plane to their honeymoon.
After a short amount of time, Jamie said she "learned that he was patient and wasn't pushy."
"Plus, he never made me feel like a bad person for not being immediately attracted [to him]," she added. "He never judged me."
Once the couple started getting to know each other better on their honeymoon, Jamie said she found herself physically attracted to Doug when he stripped down into his bathing suit on the beach.
"I was like, 'Whoa, he's so hot,'" Jamie remembered.
Doug then quipped to the newspaper he can "grow on you... like a fungus."
Jamie and Doug claimed they waited two months after their wedding to have sex but they were able to build mutual respect and admiration for each other during that time.
The couple reportedly sought help and advice from the Married at First Sight experts frequently and underwent counseling together to keep their marriage strong and their issues at bay.
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After a devastating miscarriage in 2015, Jamie and Doug survived their difficult loss through therapy. They later welcomed daughter Henley Grace in August 2017.
But having a baby did not make Jamie and Doug's life perfect.
Jamie confessed to the Post she was missing the "fireworks" in her romance again and she struggled at first to form an intense bond with her little girl.
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"[My anxiety] was because I always had these grand expectations... Doug, again, had no expectations, and he was able to be so calm."
Growing in love and learning to be parents, however, has strengthened Jamie and Doug's relationship.
"Sharing the responsibility of a child is a whole other level," Jamie shared.
The finale of Married at First Sight's eighth season airs next Tuesday night on Lifetime.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
