My Thoughts on Netflix’s The Ultimatum

Let’s talk about Season 1 of The Ultimatum on Netflix. Long story short, it’s a reality show featuring a handful of couples in which one partner is ready to get married, and the other is not quite there yet. The premise is, that by the end of the show if said partner does not agree to get married, there’s the threat of a breakup. And just how will they prepare for one of the biggest decisions of their lives?

Infidelity, of course!

Over the course of the show, each person pairs up with someone from another couple, with the idea that they could potentially be a better fit. And if you can still look your original partner in the eyes after three weeks of living with a sexy stranger, perhaps a happy marriage will come from it?

(Enter me, bored and ready to detach from my own reality. Cue the judgment — and a fresh bucket of popcorn.)

The rest of this post will include spoilers, so if you haven’t watched yet, you’ve been warned.

Why I Think an Ultimatum Is a Terrible Idea

First of all, you can’t force someone to be ready to marry you. It’s just a bad way to start a marriage. The result is an obligation, as opposed to a true desire to commit. And there’s a lot more to marriage than just a fun wedding.

When you’re living together and married, you tend to see the full ins and outs of a person — literally the good, bad, and the ugly.

And because marriage is supposedly a lifelong commitment, it should begin with some sort of understanding of what the person wants and needs. Nothing good will ever come from having the goal of “I can change their mind” or “I can fix them.”

Okay, so why am I getting all preachy on you already? Let’s just say I’ve been there, and am currently healing from being there. Acceptance is one of the biggest parts of marriage that I failed at.

I was one of those “He’ll see it my way” women, and many of our issues stemmed from each of us actively trying to convince the other to admit we were right. And as you can imagine, that’s not a productive way to communicate. No one is doing the active listening or validating the other. On the contrary, it ends up being one of those waiting-to-respond situations.

Over the years, one of the biggest things I learned was as simple as switching the perspective from us as individuals going against each other, but instead, us as a unit vs. the problem we face.

A Close Look at the Couples

Okay, so let’s take a closer look at the couples on the show and where I (again, me, my opinions, thankuverrymuch) think most of these folks went wrong.

Nate and Lauren

For this first one, I don’t actually remember who presented who with the Ultimatum, because they left before the experiment even started. Homeboy just didn’t want to see his lady getting too close to another man. Understandable. But ya’ll signed up for this?

Their issue was that Lauren did not want to have kids. And instead of accepting that, Nate decided it was his job to convince her otherwise — or wait until she changed her mind?

It was kind of cringe seeing him say that he’d compromise for her, that he’d have no family without her, so he could deal with not having kids. But, then at the reunion, they’re still together and she said she’s now ready for just one kid. How is that fair for her?

It seems like over the course of the aftermath of the show, he just continued to guilt trip her into saying what he wanted to hear. Why not just accept that they each want different things and leave it at that? They’d ideally be better off finding someone whom they love AND also wants the same things out of life.

I can just imagine her becoming pregnant because that’s what he wants and then she ends up resenting the CHILD for it. No way to start a marriage.

April and Jake

And then there’s April — she said many times that she just wanted to be married, not even necessarily married to Jake. She just wanted the ring, the title, and it’s so upsetting cause there’s way more to it than that. You can pick any two people in the world who want to be married, but that will almost never result in a happy relationship.

(See also: I just want to be pregnant, vs. acknowledging the full responsibility of raising a whole human being for the rest of your life.)

The fact that this man basically fell in love with Rae from Day 1 kind of hints that he may not have loved April as dearly as he claimed.

Rae and Zay

Rae presented Zay with the Ultimatum, but she was doing a terrible job at opening up to her partner and being vulnerable with him. Oh, but they had a great sex life (sex 2–3 times a day?? I call bullshit).

Then, the switcheroo. Rae was a completely different person when she was with Zay vs. when she was with Jake — which I guess was the whole point of the show? She learned more about herself and was able to decide what she actually did want from a relationship. It just sucks that her boyfriend made her feel so small.

I want to say that Zay is trash, but I’ll be nicer, because we’re all human. But, he was one of the people on the show who did not do well with criticism, and then turned around and started crying after realizing he was being a dick (or about to lose Rae).

I imagine if he tried therapy, continued to unpack his trauma, and accepted his own flaws in romantic relationships, he could potentially progress to become a strong partner for the right one. It’s obvious he has a big heart.

But then again, maybe he’s just meant to be a single man, and that’s okay, too.

Colby and Madlyn

I cringed every time Colby and Madlyn were on the screen. Would not recommend. Colby seemed like a bit of a manipulator, how he knew what he wanted, but did a very abysmal job of hearing Madlyn when she spoke. It was that whole waiting-to-respond situation.

And then the way he proposed was kind of gross. Watching it, I legit thought she was fighting the urge to interrupt him and say, “No, never, I will not marry you.” The literal day before, they argued about the same issue, and she said she no longer wanted to marry him. She was ready to leave his ass.

They didn’t have much of a resolution to their issues of him lying and “cheating” over the course of the show. (I say it’s technically cheating because the girls he pursued were not a part of the show he and Madlyn signed up for and he kept it from her.) Their proposal didn’t really present a strong trajectory toward growth for either of them.

He kind of forced her hand at getting married that same day! She didn’t have a chance to even think about it first. Then, she turns up at the reunion pregnant. I cringed when she walked in with that belly. I’m not sure exactly how long after the show they taped the reunion, but I’m calling shotgun wedding, and it’s kind of sad.

Shanique and Randall

Last, Shanique presents Randall with the Ultimatum. His reasoning for wanting to wait? He claimed he wanted to become more financially stable (which is perfectly reasonable).

These two seemed to truly have love between them, but they also had some of the worst arguments, too. And ironically, there were many moments of immaturity from Shanique, the one who thought she was ready for marriage. She deflected when she thought she knew what was right, and she did a poor job hearing and validating Randall’s concerns with her.

But after seeing the reunion episode, it seems like Shanique and Randall were the only couple that had a realization of: 1. They love each other and actually do want to be married, and 2. They have a lot of work to do before earning that marriage.

Their resolution was to take a hard look at themselves and seek therapy to continue workig towards the next step in their relationship. They agreed that they needed to earn that engagement together.m

Okay, So What Did We Learn?

You shouldn’t feel like you have to force someone to make a decision or be honest with you. It’s important to be able to have these difficult conversations throughout your journey of being with someone. To hear each other out, validate what the other person is saying, and find solutions that could make both parties happy.

You never want to wait until you’re married — or when there’s a baby’s on the way — to start talking about these things.

The person who knows they want to commit to you should be able to talk about what they want or work toward that goal. And if they don’t have the same goals, they should feel open to expressing that to you. And you should be able to understand that they’re a whole human, with their own needs and wants — not just someone who was put on this Earth to agree with everything you want.

I don’t think an Ultimatum is necessary when you have open, honest conversations about where you are in life and what you want. And if you don’t have that safe space with your partner to feel heard and seen, (Looking at you, Rae and Zay), that’s a sign in itself of whether marriage is for you two.

I’m a ripe 31 years old, and this show made me really take a closer look at myself and who I was in my early twenties. I have really been growing and healing in these last few years. I was concerned about marriage and I felt ready for it before my significant other. And I couldn’t see why he wouldn’t just go ahead and propose to me already — on my time. But back then, he was saying things similar to what Randall in the show was saying, that our relationship needed a lot more work before we committed to a marriage. And yeah, it did.

I identify with both Rae and Shanique, having had moments like theirs myself. Some days, I’ve been immature and rejected what came across as me not doing something right. Others, I’ve had moments of feeling small and unheard when I do try to speak with honesty, having that fear of starting trouble or being taken as a bitch.

Sometimes it takes watching a train wreck of a reality TV show to do some self-reflection, and be grateful for the lessons along the way.

Long story long — find a good therapist.