Marshall Glaze of “Love Is Blind” thinks he has a better grasp on his feelings than former fiancée Jackie Bonds.
In the last batch of episodes for Season 4 of the Netflix dating reality series, the pair decided to call it quits before embarking on a wedding. Glaze — who tended to emphasize his sensitive, “nice guy” persona on the show by often using therapy-related words and phrases — explained to Variety in an interview published Friday that the couple broke up because Bonds was not as emotionally mature as he was.
“She very much put that she can’t give me what I need as far as the emotional availability or rise to my emotional maturity,” Glaze told the outlet. “Not that she doesn’t have that within her, but it just kind of paled in comparison. And that’s okay. Not everybody has the same level of emotional maturity as we’re talking about.”
“Love Is Blind” is a reality show where 15 men and 15 women date one another in “pods,” or small rooms, separated by a wall. Participants can talk to each other but cannot see one another unless they decide to get engaged. If a couple gets engaged, they finally get the chance to meet face-to-face before getting married a few weeks later.
Bonds did show signs of not being physically attracted to Glaze upon meeting him, and cameras captured several emotional outbursts that seemed to sabotage their relationship. Viewers also saw her also agreeing to date Josh Demas, another participant she met in the pods, before officially breaking it off with Glaze.
Bonds claimed on Instagram after the episodes aired that she broke up with Glaze prior to rekindling things with Demas, but editing on the show made it look like the opposite.
Glaze wasn’t a poster boy for emotional maturity, either.
Fans on social media have criticized Glaze for having a “savior complex” whenever Bond had a breakdown. In Episode 6, he commented to the cameras: “Jackie has a tendency to ruminate. And she tends to stay in a mood for a long time. Longer than I would like, however, that’s not up to me. And I’m just there chilling, waiting.”
The couple’s biggest blowout occurs in Episode 8, when Glaze admits that he left the couple’s shared apartment after Bonds told him to “boss up,” or act more “aggressive” sexually.
“The way that she made me feel in that moment when she said that — I wasn’t a man,” he says to the cameras. “That hurts, because I truly, genuinely do love this girl.”
When Glaze returns to the apartment, Bonds is packing her clothes. Bonds says she is not interested in playing games, and the pair engage in an explosive disagreement about Glaze choosing to leave instead of addressing his feelings. “I never said you weren’t man enough for me, I just said to be more aggressive,” Bonds says. “We don’t have sex, bro!”
Glaze responds to this by telling Bonds that she does not make him feel special. She then questions why Glaze even likes her.
“Because I see you as a project and I saw potential,” he says. “I thought that you were just going to come around to me.”
Bonds is offended by the idea that Glaze views her as someone he had to fix, and Glaze backpedals his “project” remark by saying he meant that he felt that their relationship had “limitless potential.”
The two finally call it quits in Episode 10, with Bonds admitting to Glaze that she has feelings for Demas. After Glaze leaves angrily, Bonds admits to the cameras: “I don’t even know if I’m gonna be with Josh. I don’t know if I’m gonna be with anybody … I need to probably do some self-work.”
Bonds has since shared some of her difficulties captured on-camera were due to the stress of caring for her father, who has cancer, alongside her day job as a dental assistant. She also has a brother who was recently released from prison.
“Family comes first,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
Glaze admitted to Variety that he misunderstood Bonds when she told him to “boss up.”
“Jackie didn’t verbatim say that I was less of a man,” he clarified to the outlet. “It was my interpretation of it.”
He also implied that being called less manly was an insecurity of his.
“I’ve heard that I’m soft my entire life,” he told Variety. “And that’s okay. It took me a long time to get to the point of acceptance. I made a birthday video for myself, and I just speak to acceptance, that’s my 27th year is just acceptance, I accept myself for exactly who I am. I’m unapologetic about my sensitivity, my emotions, and the fact that I wear my heart on my sleeve. I love myself, and I put myself out there. And that’s all that I could ever truly ask or hope for out of anybody: just to put it all out there.”
To read Glaze’s interview in full, head over to Variety.