Matt’s behavior on Love is Blind is the text book definition emotional abuse. Their interactions triggered me all season long, and after seeing Colleen visibly scared on the reunion, I wanted to record a podcast breaking down the behavior and looking at their interactions through the lens of Emotional Abuse.
Netflix should add a trigger warning to the episodes and provide resources for victims of abuse.
Cycle of Abuse: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1916632/10300770
Netflix “Love is a Rollercoaster”: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkyVAlnOdMm/?hl=en
Unedited episode transcript below:
Welcome to the Relationship Recovery Podcast, posted by Jessica Knight, a certified life coach who specializes in narcissistic and emotional abuse. This podcast is intended to help you identify manipulative and abusive behavior, set boundaries with yourself and others, and heal the relationship with yourself so you can learn to love in a healthy way.
My name is Jessica Knight and thanks for being here If you have not watched the current season of Love and Blind season three. That’s what this episode is about, and I am not gonna go into explaining the ins and outs. I am going to talk through this episode as if you’ve seen it, so apologies if that’s annoying to you, but this is an extra episode that I’m putting out because I have been so triggered by what I’ve seen.
In the past, I’ve watched reality TV and I’ve felt triggered before. Two specific examples that I think about are early episodes of Southern Charm with Katherine Dennis and Thomas Ravenel. When Katherine. Was experiencing birth complications when Katherine wasn’t being supported. Um, there was even an incident when he went to a strip club and Katherine was home and she was upset about that and everybody was making fun of her while she was extremely pregnant.
I also was very triggered by Natalie and Mike, and they’re from a 90 day fiance and. Are not that many episodes out there, or even just like anything out there about how rude Mike is, everything is about how Natalie is crazy. And same with Catherine. There’s so much during that time about how they’re crazy.
But both of those situations were highly emotionally abusive and the progression that I’ve seen from Colleen through this season of Love and Blind is insane. And I watched the reunion last night. And I think that I’m still probably a little shaky from just seeing how scared she was and I wanted to talk about that because I don’t know that,
I guess because. There are a lot of things on the internet right now that are making it seem like this is normal when it’s not. And if you look at any of the photos posted by Colleen or by Netflix, there’s a lot of comments about Blink. If you need help, post a ballet video. If you need help. Are you okay?
So some people are seeing it, but not completely, and. I have watched the fight scene from episode five several times, and my stomach drops every single time. This was the episode at the Pool when Colleen and Cole Connect. I imagine if you’re listening to this episode again, that you’ve been watching, Love Is Blind, so I’m not gonna go through the ins and outs, and if you’re curious about it, I would just recommend watching it, but.
The trigger of this interaction was when Matt observed Colleen and Cole talking, and Colleen later told Matt what they discussed as most participants do when they finally meet in person and. Colleen and Cole were obviously into each other at one point. I think that they thought that they could be together.
They are on a freaking reality show about finding love. So obviously when they connect in person, they had an emotional connection, and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with talking about that, that might actually bring closure to them. Matt became very angry and jealous with Colleen, which led to their first blowout.
And this is in which they were at the dinner table. Matt was engaging in verbally abusive behaviors. He was controlling unempathetic, sarcastic. He was basically like stabbing his meat with the, um, with the knife. Like he was not engaging in a conversation. That one understood the reality of the situation.
That is, you’re on a reality TV show. Colleen was talking to Cole. They talked for a few minutes. Whether or not that conversation was appropriate, inappropriate, hurt, his feelings, it doesn’t matter. What matters is is that this was not coming from a place of understanding, and there are ways to express feelings of disappointment without scaring somebody.
Colleen needed to excuse herself and went to the bathroom. She collects herself and he came in to talk to her and was standing very aggressively, and again, not approaching the conversation from a place of how can we work this out? It was from a place of, you’re wrong. I was concerned with how he discussed their fight the following day when he was talking to the cameras and explains it as we weren’t able to communicate and it wasn’t a big deal as we made it out to be, and I was just sitting there thinking, we, Who the fuck is we?
He puts the blame on both of them instead of taking responsibility for his behavior and puts up a wall. In a healthy communication pattern, somebody would approach these kinds of disagreements to resolve it and resolve it. And in this situation, Colleen was really not able to say how she felt. In fact, I believe he saw her distress and he became more aggressive.
He also threatens to pack up his bags, which is not the first time that we see that, but that’s a sign of abuse because it always keeps, it keeps the other person on their toes constantly at this person’s just gonna leave. And if this was just a one time thing, it would be a one time thing, but it’s not the only time that this happens.
And I understand that for Matt, he came into this whole thing with some trauma. He was cheated on. It does affect his perception, but he seems to be unaware of the specific behavior. . That is very common and it’s, I think that for Colleen to have a conversation with Cole or with anybody, even if it is
on camera, I mean it’s okay. They basically just said like, We would be attracted to each other in the outside world. Cole admitted that he was feeling conflicted, I think for the situation they’re in. This is completely normal. It’s probably important to talk about those things and think about those things before you commit to marrying somebody.
And so my issue is, is that Colleen seemed to really believe that it was her fault and that it was okay for Matt to be so explosively possessive.
And so I wanna just take a second and look at this through the cycle of abuse, because this is why it’s been so triggering to me. The cycle of abuse has four steps. I do talk about the cycle of abuse in other podcasts. I will link it at the bottom of this one. It is tension rising abuse of incident reconciliation, and calm.
That’s the cycle of abuse in the honeymoon phase. Which is the calm, it’s sunshine, it’s rainbows, it’s love bombing. If we look back at the early episodes, Matt obviously was love bombing her, saying that, you know, you’re the only one for me. I only have eyes for you. And then tension begins to rise. This is like the conversation between Colleen and Cole.
It triggers Matt’s insecurity and jealousy. You watch him be irrational there. He’s irrational at dinner. He’s irrational during the conversation. and then there’s an incident in this case, Matt lashes out. He yells. He accuses Colleen being disloyal and coldly disengaging as a punishment, which is called stonewalling.
She’s obviously in distress. She goes to the bathroom, she’s crying, she can’t talk to the camera, and she tries to talk to him while he threatens to end the relationship and. Basically, we don’t actually see in that episode that it doesn’t end, but that, like I said before, is a sign of abuse because it’s basically like holding the carrot over and you know, and being like, I’m gonna leave.
I’m gonna take this away if you don’t do what I want you to do. And then of course they reconcile. Colleen tries to apologize and fix things. She takes full responsibility. She blames herself for not being firmer with Cole. I actually believe that she thinks that everything that she did was wrong. Matt frames the fight as both of them just not communicating and does not acknowledge his problematic behavior.
We don’t know if he apologized. But since we don’t end up seeing any apologies, I imagine that he didn’t, they return to being lovey-dovey, which is when they reenter calm, and
I guess it’s, Colleen seems happy and relieved to be in a good place, but. She doesn’t confront him on how he behaved and how she wants conversations around conflict to go moving forward. And so this is the same exact thing that happens when the couples go out. Zab and Matt get into a conversation. Matt is elevated.
They go home. Colleen goes out with the girls in a later episode. She says that like they just got into one Uber. The guys got into another Uber. The girls all go out. The guys went home. She, they all thought the guys were coming, but they’re there. They’re partying. They’re probably drunk, you know, Cause they were all at this thing.
But a few minutes before it. And he freaks out that it’s a Wednesday at 2:00 AM and she’s not home. She’s out with the girls from the show they were filming. They had to film this thing together. I don’t imagine everybody had work the next day if they’re in the middle of filming something like this. And also, what’s the issue?
It’s a Wednesday. Who the hell cares? They’re on a reality TV show. She’s out with the girls that are literally in the show. So Matt again packs all his bags. It’s a sign of abuse. He’s clearly so angry. He’s calling her like a crazy person when. When the person consistently is putting the end of the relationship on the table, it’s emotional abuse.
Every single time his bags are packed, and I literally hope that he takes his bags and walks out the door and goes directly to therapy because that is so unhealthy. It’s okay to not agree with her behavior. It’s okay to believe that, you know, alright, maybe she should have communicated better or realized he wasn’t there or called or whatever.
It’s not okay to react in anger all the time. Reacting in any situation with anger due to not understanding even why it happened is just not okay. And then he does this thing where he shuts down and refused to listen to her, and that’s not okay. And so
there’s one other scene that’s very clear and it’s very much like these other ones, it’s their dinner before the. Over dinner. Matt asks Colleen if she’s sure or not sure about getting married.
I understand that this, you know, and this is a time where they can have these conversations, they could have these questions, they can have, they can have this dialogue. But when he asked that question, I was looking at Colleen and I almost felt like she couldn’t vulnerably and honestly answer. It almost felt like a test, and I think from being in emotionally abusive situations before, I felt that a lot.
I just don’t know if shit hits the fan, you’ll be there, is what she responds to him with. It’s a valid point. He says, Maybe it’s me not being able to express my feelings as much as you have to me. I might not be that good at expressing my emotion cause I’ve shut down for too long and he continues down this spiral of, maybe it’s me.
I’m just not good at this. I’m not as good as you. You are this. And I start to think like, is he trying to connect with her and open up? And then it turned into, A more abusive tone of like, Maybe I can’t do this. Maybe I’m just not as good as you, and I’m just like, What the fuck? Like, don’t set this girl up for this.
He then asks a question that would’ve made anybody freeze, and she goes, Is he? He goes, Sorry, is love enough to get married? And Colleen was visibly struggling. She then admits that she was struggling with the question of, is love enough? He stares at her. He even says, Colleen, stop playing games. Honestly, I don’t think she’s playing any games.
I think she was confused and lost and didn’t know how to answer that question because there was clearly a right answer and a wrong question to him. She goes, Shouldn’t it be, And Matt pressed her again and when she, Well, she was struggling to find words. He says, Say it. Say it with a smile smirk that if you’re listening to.
I’m sure you can imagine it. It’s like that smile smirk of like, I know I got you. I fucking hate it. And when people have done that to me in relationships that I, I immediately shut down. She eventually says at that moment, Love alone wouldn’t be enough for her to say yes at the altar. And we don’t see what happens.
Matt’s level of self, un self-awareness or lack of self-awareness, Insane. You know, he, again, in a lot of these conversations or in in this show, we see the other person coming back, acknowledging their faults, talking about what they think. I don’t think I ever once saw a, a screen grab or whatever of Matt saying, I’m really fucking up.
I’m really sorry. I have some really toxic behaviors and I wanna work. The minute this is over, I’m going right to therapy, or I’m getting anger management, or the way that I talk to you is inappropriate, and I’m sorry. Yet he admits to his friends at the bachelor party that he felt like he was self-sabotaging and his friends encourage him not to ruin things if he loved her.
But again, I don’t ever hear him express humbly and account like humbly and with an apology to Colleen. He doesn’t even do it at the reunion. Cole gets dragged during the reunion bar Ortiz gets dragged during the reunion. Why not Matt? Like, I’m looking over at Alexis and Brennan, who like are calm and you can tell by their body language that they feel good to be around each other.
And then you, you look over at Colleen and she looks terrified.
She looks actually extremely dysregulated, scared and worry. She also doesn’t look like she can speak for herself. And so yesterday, or today, actually no. Today Netflix posts a, like basically a screen grab of a scene and I’ll, I’ll find a way to link this too so you can see what I’m talking about. But it’s a scene.
It’s the scene from the time, right before the wedding, and it says, even though we’ve had so many up and down, You know how you’re on a rollercoaster and you’re like, One more time. I don’t wanna get off this ride. Netflix writes, Love is a rollercoaster, and I’m just sitting here like, what the actual fuck?
Why are we enabling abuse? Like our, Is it just me? It’s not just me. Because according to the internet and TikTok, a lot of people are fired up about this. But here are four of the comments that people posted on this Instagram. Has anyone checked on her? Is she good? Because she looked really uncomfortable at the reunion.
Anyone else super shocked they actually got married? Colleen Blink twice if you need help.
Is she okay?
And so the reason that I think that I wanted to do this and that I. Have spent a lot of today thinking about it is because we should not be normalizing this type of behavior. We should not be normalizing that love is a rollercoaster, this is abuse, it’s unacceptable. And even if it wasn’t abusive behavior happening that we saw and we just saw the light in her eyes dim, if we just all saw how scared she.
I think that would be enough to be like, What is going on here? And it wasn’t even questioned. And I don’t know why
it, you know, if, It’s almost like if you can reasonably predict somebody’s reactions, which I think we all can for Matt, and we’re not reasonably predicting that he’s going to be calm and caring. That’s a huge red flag. And so
I guess I’m just going to end with that.
Some signs of emotional abuse are exactly what we see in Colleen. Her body is tense, her breathing seems to change her heart looks like she’s racing. She’s stiff, she’s anxious, She barely smiles, and she was hands down the most bubbly person throughout the whole season. If somebody in your life is presenting that way, if somebody in your life is apologizing for getting emotional and crying, you should be worried about them.
I believe the show does have an ethical OB obligation to address it and to not post things like love is a rollercoaster because. I don’t, I don’t think that that’s what we should be promoting, especially to a wide audience. I think that if we saw one time true accountability from that, I might see differently.
But instead, I’m actually really worried about the situation and I am glad that Colleen is not living with him.
So that’s the end of my rant. I’m gonna step off my soapbox. Thank you for listening. I’m sorry for ranting at you. I’d love to talk about this though. So if you resonate with this, please comment below. You can email me, jessica jessica coaching.com. I have been blowing up my TikTok at Emotional abuse Coach with this.
And again, if you’re either super triggered by this, if you’re noticing yourself in it, if you notice a friend in some of the behaviors that you’re seeing on in Colleen, please reach out and get the support that you need. And not that I think it will go anywhere. Cause I’m sure she got 500 dms. I’m just gonna name it.
I also sent her one saying that I’d be happy to chat if she needs support.