MAFS expert Mel Schilling may spend her days dissecting relationships on national television, but away from the cameras, her own love story is refreshingly low-key.
Living in the UK with her husband Gareth Brisbane and their daughter Madison, Schilling’s life off-screen is a testament to her belief in love.
Here is everything we know about Mel and her husband Gareth
When did Mel Schilling get married?
Mel married when she was 40 and explained the timing of her and Gareth’s wedding was shaped by a challenging year spent apart.
“Our commitment ceremony in Bali felt more like a wedding and our actual wedding felt more like a commitment ceremony, but that’s OK,” she previously told WHO. “We decided to make things official because Gareth and I were so keen to finish 2020 off on a positive note. I’d spent three months away from him and Maddie during the year to film Married at First Sight.”
Travel restrictions at the time kept the family separated, reinforcing the importance of connection in their relationship.
“Due to the restrictions in place at that time, I couldn’t go home to Melbourne to see them and they couldn’t come to Sydney to see me and it was really hard.
“It just emphasised to us how important connection is in a relationship. So we both decided to put a positive spin on love, connection and our relationship by making it official. We felt like, ‘Yeah, now is the time.'”
Talking about her wedding, she added: “I had a bit of a cry on the day. It’s just the meaning of it all. I was a late bloomer in life, like, I didn’t meet my husband until I was nearly 40 and then we had our daughter when I was nearly 42, so to be finally saying our ‘I dos’ was an emotional time.
“It was very special.”
How did Mel Schilling meet her husband?
Schilling has spoken openly about being a late bloomer when it came to relationships, having spent her 30s single before meeting Gareth on the online dating site eHarmony.
“When we matched he was living in Adelaide, so we texted each other for six weeks before we could meet.
“We couldn’t talk on the phone because at that point, I couldn’t understand his strong Northern Irish accent. It meant we really had a chance to get to know each other on a more intellectual level,” she told WHO.
What has Mel Schilling said about her marriage?
Despite her expertise in relationships, Schilling is the first to admit her marriage isn’t perfect – but says openness and growth are key.
“We’re far from perfect. He runs his own online business and we’re two alphas, both very strong-willed! But we’re open to learning from each other as well.
“That doesn’t mean the odd door doesn’t get slammed but we’re also pretty good at going, ‘OK, what happened there?’ Gareth will say to me though, ‘I’m not one of your MAFS participants or clients’, which, of course, I really love,” she told WHO.
For Schilling, Gareth was exactly what she’d been searching for.
“But Gareth was exactly what I was looking for. The missing piece for me while I was dating was someone I could spar with, who would challenge me, and make me think bigger and grow. And he did that from day dot and he still does it daily,.”
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