Love Is Blind season 8 stars Ben Mezzenga and Sara Carton seemed like they were headed toward their happily ever after when fans last saw them, but it ultimately wasn’t in the cards.
Sara, 29, decided to not go through with her wedding to Ben, 28, and told him “no” at the altar.
“Ben, I love you so much, but I’ve always wanted a partner to be on the same wavelength, and so, today, I can’t,” the oncology nurse said during their wedding ceremony in episode 13. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want that to be misunderstood. I still love you, and everything about you is amazing, and I care about you so much.”
The former college baseball player was seemingly shocked by Sara’s decision but said that he knew he “wanted to stay” with her and “keep growing their relationship,” if she would “let” him. However, Sara wasn’t necessarily on board with the idea.
“We’ll see,” Sara replied.
When Sara got a chance to talk to her mom and sister Leslie in private, she admitted that she was sad that she and Ben didn’t go through with their wedding. She still thought he was a “great person,” but his lack of passion about certain social justice issues made her question whether or not he was the person she was meant to be with.
“Sometimes I did wonder if it was surface, fun carefree love that we had,” Sara told Love Is Blind producers. “Equality, religion, the vaccine? Like, I brought up all these things because I think they’re all important conversations. Whatever you believe, at least have the conversation. There was no curiosity coming from his side. I’ve always just thought I’d want to be with someone more curious, who was more curious about my brain and how I think about things.”
She continued, “People prove who they are, you know? Actions speak louder than words. You can say anything you want, but show me. That would have changed everything if he really showed priority.”
Ben spoke to his friends and confessed that he didn’t see Sara’s answer coming and had “thought they were on the same page.”
“As much as we talked about it and as confident I was that we’re not going to break up today, there was that nerve of, like, that could happen,” he explained. “I kind of gave her the opportunity to be like, ‘I would love to stay together, if you’d let me.’ We both align on where we’re similar, but we’re not aligned perfectly. It wasn’t anything that I didn’t think a relationship could work, but seeing me at the end of the aisle and knowing that it’s the real thing, she might have just been like, ‘It’s not the right fit.’”
While Sara and Ben connected pretty early on in the Love Is Blind pods, they did run into a speed bump when she asked him about politics and religion. She later told Us Weekly that she wasn’t sure if Ben was honest about his religious views after attending a church service with him.
“At the time, I thought he was being truthful saying like, ‘It’s OK. I don’t want you to ever feel obligated,’ I also know it’s important to him,” Sara said in the interview published on February 28. “It’s very interesting watching the episodes back because I realize how important religion really is for him in the last couple episodes, and I never heard that from him [during the experiment]. … You would think someone religious or with that [level of] spirituality would want their partner to have the same level.”
