Married at First Sight star Shawniece Jackson admits Decision Day had a much more significant meaning in her marriage to Jephte Pierre other than just announcing they did not want to get a divorce.
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Shawniece and Jephte exchanged vows as complete strangers. They didn't even know each other's names going into the eight-week Married at First Sight experiment, so Jephte apparently wanted to feel like he was the guy for his wife -- just not a guy selected out of a pool.
RELATED LINK: 'MARRIED AT FIRST SIGHT' COUPLES NOW: WHO'S STILL TOGETHER? WHO BROKE UP? (PHOTOS)
"I feel like [Decision Day] was the one time that I could have chosen him," Shawniece told Unfiltered host Jamie Otis with tears in her eyes.
"So I wanted to be able to do that for him, to show him, 'I choose you and I choose you each time. Everything I asked for, that's what you are.'"
Shawniece and Jephte were thrilled about achieving a successful and happy marriage on the show, but reality apparently took a toll on their relationship once cameras stopped rolling.
"Because now we have to figure it out on our own. You have to go back to where you started and [realize] this is what you want, and you've got to get through it," Shawniece noted.
But they did get through it, and Shawniece just announced on April 24 she's expecting her first child with Jephte.
RELATED LINK: 'MARRIED AT FIRST SIGHT' STAR JEPHTE PIERRE GUSHES ABOUT WIFE SHAWNIECE JACKSON'S PREGNANCY
When thinking about what's to come for the couple, Shawniece gushed about being able to share life with her husband and feel he's always going to have her back.
"I feel like he's going to be honest with me and genuinely care about me and have my back," Shawniece said. "All of those little things that come with him, like his honesty. I mean, sometimes he doesn't deliver it great and sometimes it's a lot, but his honesty is the thing I respect and admire about him the most."
Jephte -- who refused to even sleep in the same bed as his wife several weeks into the process -- has also come an extremely long way. Not only does Jephte trust his wife and feel comfortable enough to be intimate, but he actually bought her lingerie to dress up in!
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"I was surprised because Jephte is low-key," Shawniece said of Jephte's gift the night before Decision Day. "He doesn't even like lingerie, so for Jephte to go to the store and pick out lingerie for me, that's like next level big step! That's like baby steps to whoa!"
Since Shawniece left the show with a loving husband, she shared some advice with future Married at First Sight couples.
"The key thing is learning that person and understanding their background and becoming curious to figure out why they respond and why they react to those things... and [you've got to] be yourself," she reasoned.
"If you wear your heart on your sleeve, you've got to be that, because at the end of the eight weeks, if you aren't that and then the cameras leave and you decide to be something different, it's not going to work."
RELATED LINK: 'MARRIED AT FIRST SIGHT' COUPLES NOW: WHO'S STILL TOGETHER? WHO BROKE UP? (PHOTOS)
Married at First Sight's 90-minute reunion special will air Tuesday, May 1 at 8:30PM ET/PT on Lifetime.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
