After briefly reuniting after their shock exit from Married At First Sight, Aleks Markovic and Ivan Sarakula split for good in February.
WATCH: MAFS’ Aleks defies producers with a late-night Instagram rant
According to the Daily Mail Australia, it was Ivan’s decision to call time on their relationship.
“It was Ivan’s decision to end things and he dumped Aleks out of the blue. He didn’t want to be with her anymore,” a source told the publication.
“She was blindsided and is still upset. The rest of the cast are so confused, but Aleks and Ivan are respecting each other’s privacy and keeping things to themselves.”
The conservative pair were shown quitting the show this week in scenes that were filmed in November.
The revelations come after Ivan suggested earlier this week that they are trying to work things out.
After Sunday night’s explosive episode aired and we saw the couple defy the experts by leaving the experiment unannounced, Ivan took to Instagram to also explain why they needed to leave, admitting the pressure cooker environment was damaging their marriage.
“The pressures and expectations of the experiment got the better of us. Aleks and I stayed together the evening of our exit and I even saw her off at the airport to be with her family again,” Ivan captioned a photo of the couple which was taken while attending an event after filming wrapped.
“It was an emotional moment for the both of us. Let’s see if being outside does our relationship any more justice without the pressure and judgements of our peers,” he added.
“That being said, regardless of what pans out over the next few days and weeks, we are forever grateful for all of the wonderful people we have met along the way. We are all just humans on our own journey. Spread love, not hate and judgement.”
We saw a different side to Ivan last week when dozens of damaging accusations were thrown across the dinner table, including claims he asked his co-stars to bring up the topic of intimacy. As we know, Aleks comes from a religious family and has long been uncomfortable sharing whether they’re having, in her words, “s. e. x”.
“He rang us stressed out saying she’d friend-zoned him and said there was no passion when in reality there was passion,” said Josh Pihlak, who was supposedly asked by Ivan to expose the truth.
“He said they’d been rooting like rabbits for weeks. He asked us to bring it up and he got away as the nice guy who had nothing to do with it.”
Despite Josh and pot-stirrer Michael Goonan teaming up against Ivan, he maintains his innocence and denies ever devising a plan to expose details about their sex life.
“Absolutely not, certainly not with Michael,” he said on Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa, suggesting he tried to expose the couple on his own accord.
“Aleks had a conversation with Josh about some intimate details that I don’t need to go into and I just said, ‘look Joshy, if a question about her attraction levels toward me comes out, can you have my back?’ But I never came and said, ‘look mate smash her at the dinner party’ or anything like that.”
While the brutal feud escalated quickly — with Aleks later storming out and telling Michael to “get f***ed” — Ivan suggested the show’s producers twisted Josh’s words.
“He was manipulated by the situation and I’m sure you’ll find he’ll admit that.”
As if that wasn’t enough, fellow bride Mishel Karen later confirmed they did consummate their marriage and Ivan even shared a “provocative” and “sexual” video of Aleks with his co-stars.
“All I know, and I heard it through Josh, and Josh and I and Stacey and I are close, that Ivan did show the video to other people, a video of Aleks being provocative,” Mishel said on news.com.au’s Not Here To Make Friends podcast.
“I think that’s not cool to show that to them, but that’s hearsay, so I’m not sure if that’s true. But I actually believe Stacey and Josh,” she said, adding, “I wouldn’t doubt them. There’s no reason for them to lie,” she added.
Meanwhile, both Ivan and Aleks are denying the existence of this video, claiming “it’s news to us”.