Married At First Sight’s Awhina Rutene went into her Final Vows ceremony in Sunday night’s episode adamant that she was finally ready to end her relationship with Adrian Araouzou. However, much to the frustration of viewers across the country, the mum-of-one backflipped on her decision as she argued they liked each other too much to call it quits then and there.

The pair then agreed to continue seeing each other, despite their differing communication styles and long distance being the reasons behind their initial decision. Yahoo Lifestyle can reveal the pair split several days after filming those scenes back in November once Awhina returned home to Perth, and she now “regrets” how she changed her mind.

“As soon as Awhina got back to Perth, Adrian pretty much ghosted her and their relationship fizzled out to nothing,” an insider tells us.

The source claims that Awhina realised when she was back around her family, friends and son that she had “romanticised everything in her head”.

“It was like she’d been under a spell for the last three months,” they add. “She was so set on dumping him after all he’d done, but at Final Vows, having Adrian stand in front of her smiling and saying nice things, she once again just focused on their nicer moments and disregarded all the bad.”

Where do Awhina and Adrian stand with each other now?

When asked how things are now between Awhina and Adrian, the insider explains that their relationship has changed as the season has aired on TV.

“She tried to keep things civil at the start of the season and went along with his plans to do staged pictures together to try and keep him happy, but Awhina now feels like she was just being used to try and protect his image, and she has distanced herself completely,” they share.

“I entered Final Vows with a lot of fear, going, ‘Am I going to be a bad person? Maybe if we just work out, they’re not going to show all the bad moments’. I was constantly instilled with fear,” she revealed. “The reunion was probably the closest where I felt less filtered in what I could say.”

Why Awhina has chosen to defend Adrian against online backlash

Awhina also shared that she was “trying to still be supportive” of Adrian as he receives backlash online because she feels like she has “a lot of power in [her] hands”.

“Even though it’s going to look bad on me and you don’t deserve it, I still want to help you because I’ve got a community at home. I’ve got support, I went back to a job, I went back to beautiful friendships, I went back to a community. Whereas, what have you gone back to? When I met you, you had one friend, and now you don’t even have that one friend anymore,” she remarked.

“I’ve got this beautiful life, what have you got? So I thought to myself, Awhina, you’ve got enough in you to kind of lessen that burden for this person.”