HEARTBROKEN Married At First Sight star Lacey Martin fears ex-boyfriend Nathan Campbell faked his feelings for her during their relationship.
The couple split up in May after Nathan allegedly failed to support Lacey when she tackled the Race For Life in memory of her late uncle and for mum, Maxine, who had cancer.
She suggested they might be better off as friends in a bid to provoke Nathan into fighting for their relationship, but instead he blocked her and the romance ended.
Prior to this, Lacey felt a noticeable shift in his feelings towards her, citing less date nights to no more surprise bouquets of flowers.
There were further concerns for Lacey ahead of her co-star and best pal Holly Ditchfield’s birthday party.
Holly’s MAFS husband Alex Henry had previously locked horns with Lacey on the show, and she was upset that Nathan hadn’t stuck up for her.
Lacey said Nathan was concerned that he would be expected to discuss the matter with Alex, who it turns out wasn’t invited to the party, and how it might look if caught on camera.
In an exclusive interview, she said: “It does make me question if the whole thing was fake on his part.
“I was just like, ‘why do you care about how you’re looking?’ I feel like he just lacked passion for me and passion for our relationship.
“Throughout the experiment, thinking back, he would always say, ‘oh, I want to be the nice guy. I just want to be the nice guy’.
“But I didn’t realise that until after the experiment. And then I started thinking about our relationship more. He just cared about his image and how he looked and how he would come across rather than what’s right.”
Lacey continued: “I would never let anyone say anything to Nathan. Obviously, no one did. But I had that passion for us, you know, that protective, but he didn’t have that for me.
“I just felt like I was always in my masculine energy instead of being in my feminine energy.
“I felt let down and disappointed by Nathan’s like, ‘oh, is Alex going? I’m going to have to say something, ain’t I?’ And I just felt like, why is that even being brought up?
“You shouldn’t have that going into the party. You should think we’re going to have a good time but if anything comes our way, I’m going to protect my wife.”
The former couple have barely spoken since going their separate ways and kept their distance from each other at the cast reunion party.
Lacey, who teared up numerous times throughout the interview, doesn’t feel ready to date again.
In fact, for all the hurt she’s experienced, she’s keen to give Nathan another chance if he decides he wants to make it work.
“My mental health has gone really bad since this relationship,” said Lacey. “Because he was my best friend. It’s like you’re grieving a person that’s still alive because you went from 100 to zero, basically.
“I’m sitting here crying because we had such a good relationship and genuinely had feelings. And I feel like if you genuinely love someone, why would you want to let them go? Like, you would fight.
“I just feel like I don’t recognise him anymore. I’m just hurt because I just feel like he didn’t appreciate me in the end.
“And I really put myself out there to understand him, you know, the best I could. And I just thought, what have I got for it? I gave him my all. I genuinely did.”
