The reality of Seven Year Switch
Australian reality contestant Jackie Martin had no idea what she was getting herself into when she signed up for the TV show Seven Year Switch.
Not that she realised that at the time.
The Aussie reality show sees four ‘‘couples in strife’’ paired up with each other’s partners for a two-week live-in, all the while having no contact whatsoever with their actual other half.
It’s been compared to both Wife Swap and Married At First Sight, which sounds about right.
Martin herself describes the experience of making the show as ‘‘traumatic’’ and ‘‘emotional’’, and makes no secret of the fact that it wasn’t entirely pleasant.
‘‘After my first night with the experimental partner, I definitely missed Tim!’’ she reveals, referring to her real-life partner Tim Naughton.
‘‘I actually got quite teary about how much I missed him. Before the show I hadn’t cried for about 10 years. Since the show I cry every day. Just kidding. But I really hadn’t cried in a long time.’’
But why on earth would a seemingly sensible person agree to such a thing anyway? And what attracted Martin and her man to the idea of going on Seven Year Switch in the first place?
‘‘If we knew what the show involved, nothing would have attracted us to it!’’ laughs Martin.
‘‘We were approached as to whether or not we’d be interested to go on a relationship show,’’ she explains.
‘‘We thought we’d be going on holidays together, and dates together, which we were really excited about. We also - and this is an honest answer as well - we also saw it as an opportunity. We knew there would be some counselling, and we thought yeah, we’re totally open to doing that on TV, because that’s going to help other couples actually, by watching that.’’
‘‘We didn’t know about the switch until the very last minute. And to be honest, when we first found out about it we actually thought it was hilarious.’’
‘‘But I stopped laughing by about episode two.’’
This would be when Martin got to know her new ‘partner’ Brad, the man she would be living with for two weeks, all while Brad’s fiancee Tallena was settling in with Tim at the same time.
‘‘I thought, hmmm, this guy looks like he’s coming down from ice (methamphetamine),’’ says Martin, recalling her first meeting with Brad.
‘‘This is going to be fun.’’ ‘‘Intense’’ is the word that comes up most often when Martin is describing Brad. ‘‘Pretty intense’’, ‘‘so intense’’ - ’’super intense’’ even.
‘‘Brad was the most intense person I have ever met in my life,’’ she says. ’’He was just so emotional, and took the experiment so seriously that it really knocked me about. Out of respect to him, I actually started to take it quite seriously as well, and kind of had to listen to him crying a lot.’’
‘‘You’ll get to know Brad soon enough,’’ she adds ominously.
While Martin insists she would ‘‘never, in a million years, do it again’’, she does concede that Seven Year Switch wasn’t all bad.
‘‘Good has come of it,’’ she admits, ‘‘and whether that’s I stay with Tim or leave Tim, you’ll have to wait and see, but good has definitely come of it in that there were some truths revealed, and definitely some vulnerability that we may not have known about had we not done the show.’’
‘‘So yeah, I think some good came of it, but I definitely think the traumatic, emotional rollercoaster of living with Brad for two weeks is something that, mentally, I may never, ever come back from.’’ Seven Year Switch, TV2, Thursdays, 8.30pm