‘Love Is Blind’ Divorce: Lydia and Milton From Season 5 Split
Love might be blind, but it doesn’t always last forever. At least, that’s the case for Lydia Arleen and Milton James. The couple, who met on season 5 of Love Is Blind, are getting divorced after three years of marriage, Lydia announced Wednesday.
Lydia claims Milton refused to sign divorce papers if there wasn’t an NDA
Lydia dropped the divorce bombshell during an appearance on fellow Love Is Blind alum Amber Desiree “AD” Smith’s What’s the Reality? podcast June 11.
“I have decided that I [will] file for divorce against Milton,” Lydia said.
There wasn’t a single trigger for the divorce, she shared. Rather, there was “a layer of situations and things that just kept piling up.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like the split is amicable. Lydia said that when she told her husband she planned to end the marriage, he told her he wouldn’t sign the papers unless there was an NDA.
“That said enough for me to know that I needed to share my truth and my experience. Because what I’ve been suffering in silence has been too much for me to be quiet,” she said.
‘Love Is Blind’ alum felt ‘disrespected’ in her marriage
During her hour-long conversation with AD, Lydia opened up about the demise of her marriage. Despite a “fairy-tale” beginning on the Houston season of the Netflix reality series, problems started “very early” after they said “I do” in May 2022.
One of their first arguments was over a woman Milton had dated in the past who he wouldn’t cut out of his life. Lydia later discovered messages on his computer that suggested he was considering cheating on her.
“When I saw that, my heart went to the floor. I felt betrayed and disrespected,” she said.
The couple tried therapy, but it didn’t resolve their issues. At the same time, Lydia was dealing with health challenges, including depression and fibromyalgia. But when she floated the idea of taking a medical leave from her job to focus on getting better, Milton rejected the idea. He suggested she could get better by simply changing her diet.
Lydia also accused Milton of disrespecting her mother and mocking her inability to speak English with perfect fluency. Rather than focus on his relationship, he dedicated his spare time to playing video games. When she tried to raise her concerns, he accused her of “nagging” and said she was being overly emotional.
One thing that Lydia says wasn’t an issue in their marriage was their seven-year age gap. But she did say that her younger husband lacked the emotional maturity needed for a successful relationship.
Lydia says Milton wanted a woman who was ‘submissive’
As Lydia and Milton struggled to make things work, he was actively pursuing other women, she says.
“I have received, on five different occasions, messages from women allegedly saying he’s pursuing them at bars, paying for women’s drinks, heavily flirting,” she told AD.
The final straw was when a woman reached out to tell her that Milton had invited her back to his hotel room.
“That was it for me,” she said. “I was like, ‘I cannot continue.’”
Milton’s wandering eye was all the more galling because of his regressive ideas about gender. He criticized his wife for wearing bikinis and told her she had a “masculine energy.”
“He believed for a woman to be feminine, she needed to be submissive. And if that made him a sexist, so be it,” she said.
“When he told me that, I was like, OK our differences are not just miscommunication or misunderstanding,” she said. “It’s fundamental values.”
Eventually, Lydia decided to walk away. She came to believe that Milton had never loved her.
“I never felt my marriage was a priority for him,” she said.
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