Images: Nine
Timothy has been dubbed ‘the tin man’ by his friends, but can his Married At First Sight Australia 2024 pairing Lucinda find his heart?
Lucinda, a humble and spiritual soul, is a 43-year-old Byron Bay-based wedding celebrant looking for love. While most contestants entering the MAFS experiment may be fearful of ‘marrying’ a stranger, her biggest fear, hilariously, was sharing a toilet.
Meanwhile, groom Timothy is a 51-year-old down-to-earth business owner from Melbourne, looking for someone to be vulnerable with. But in order to do so, Timothy may have to step out of his comfort zone.
“If she’s up meditating, we’ve got a real problem on our hands,” Timothy told the crew, blissfully unaware that he had been paired with someone who loves to meditate…
“Because I’ve dated a meditating person in the morning, and you’ve got to walk around very quiet, and it drives me nuts. Peace and quiet.”
The wedding ceremony was off to a rocky start, at least for Timothy who quickly discovered her “spiritual energy” when Lucinda invited a guest to “bless” the relationship.
As if nature was on Timothy’s side, a massive storm suddenly appeared to dramatically halt the wedding. But with the ceremony done, came the “awkward” photoshoot.
“This day has just been full on. We’ve had spiritualism, the chicken wing, the smoke, and now you’re making out with somebody with 20 people watching. That’s just uncomfortable” Timothy said.
Meanwhile, Lucinda had different feelings: “It feels really comfortable to be intimate and close with Timothy. I think he’s sexy. It feels so good, like genuinely.”
But there was a turning point, when Lucinda uttered the dread words: “where is your family?”
Timothy opened up to his new wife, confessing, “they’re all dead.”
“I had a brother, died. Mum died, young. Its tough. Dad went five weeks ago.”
Noticing how Lucinda took on the details of his tragedy, Timothy admired her caring and kind nature. However, he quickly became overwhelmed following their official move in date. And as a result, their physical intimacy paid the price.
With their relationship seemingly stagnant, Timothy began to question the authenticity of the other couples in the experiment, particularly Tori and Jack.
“There’s no problem with having an opinion. I sit there and I’ve got an opinion on everything, that’s my right and that’s my duty,” he told the camera crew. “Suck it up princess, if you don’t like it go somewhere else.”
With a fight brewing around the dinner party, Lucinda admitted she felt “humiliated.”
“People throwing back and forth ‘are you attracted to your wife’ and ‘how about the 23 year old’ and I just wanted to hide in my little shell. I was quite uncomfortable with all of it,” she said.
Their relationship seemed to arrive at a stalemate, particularly after Timothy felt Lucinda threw him “under the bus” for questioning his intentions despite a good week. However, Timothy’s walls came crashing down to Retreat Week, showing a completely different side to the groom.
During the dinner party, the pair did the unthinkable… Timothy and Lucinda kissed for the first time!
Absolutely everyone, including Lucinda was “shocked” by the display of affection. But the mood suddenly dimmed with Timothy left the table a few minutes later. In tears, Timothy revealed he has “never been in this position.”
“I came onto this to meet somebody, to find love, and sitting at the table and I realised that this whole time I’ve been wasting time just being angry and closed off. I judge everybody else but I’m the most broken out of everybody,” he admitted.
“I’m 51 years old and I’ve never really left anyone in. I feel like I’ve wasted those years. I wish I came into this with a more open heart, ready to be matched with a person like Lucinda. She always looks for the best in people, she’s always looked for the best in me. She’s a rock, there’s no question.”
“Just being around Lucinda, I can see maybe there’s a better way to live.”
Despite this progress, a trip to his hometown sees those walls shoot straight back up.
“I was disappointed that in Melbourne he went back to not wanting to express his feelings and emotions,” Lucinda revealed to TV WEEK. “It became really obvious just how differently we communicated – I was defeated.”
When visiting Timothy’s “bachelor pad”, Lucinda revealed she felt “uncomfortable” and “unwelcome”. While confessing her feelings, Timothy blows up when he can’t handle the criticism.
“I was holding to my standards,” Lucinda explained. “I wasn’t happy about being screwed around. It’s a fine line of making space for Tim’s experience, having a crush on him, and wanting to give it a go – but also having my own self-respect and just saying, ‘Hey, I’m not happy about how this is going.’
“I was upset and that conversation pushed him over the edge.”
The couple leave things on a sour note, departing their homestay separately and arriving at the dinner party on their own.
In the show, we have begun to see a glimmer of hope for Lucinda and Tim. But what about outside of the experiment? During an interview in early March, Timothy let slip that the pair still hang out together, whether this is in a romantic capacity remains unknown.
“We were out last night,” he told Star 104.5’s Gina and Matty at the time. “It’s amazing when we go to random pubs in the middle of nowhere. How many people actually love Lu. She’s just one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.”
