Near the end of an interview with Newshub, the newest Married at First Sight New Zealand relationship expert Jo Robertson made a startling confession.
"Just in my mind [I thought] 'oh, you know, probably a few hundred people will watch it'," she said.
"John [Aiken] did say 'I think you should be more prepared for the impacts to your life'. It's just hard for me to imagine that," the easy-going and straight-talking Robertson admits, laughing.
Known to many as one of Aotearoa's most respected relationship and sex therapists, Robertson has been practising for over 14 years. She's also likely to be familiar to many for her media appearances advocating for government changes and education in the field of technology and sexualised media on young people.
When the offer came to join renowned expert John Aiken on the New Zealand version of the show, which returns to Three and ThreeNow in May, Robertson had to admit she was not a "mass viewer" of either the Australian TV juggernaut or its Kiwi counterpart.
But the idea of democratising therapy for the masses via TV proved to be too tantalising a proposition.
"I didn't want to lose any credibility. I asked a lot of questions around the ethics of the show and how the participants would be treated and what were the expectations of me. It was so important that I never wavered, essentially on my integrity. Ultimately, I landed with it being a really not so much of a great opportunity for me, even though it is. That's not why I ended up doing it.
"I ended up doing it because I really believe in relationship advice and resourcing to be made more publicly available. So I talked to a supervisor about it, and I said: 'I don't know if this is a good idea or not'. And they said, 'well, the old model of therapy and relationship work only being for the wealthy is problematic'
"This is a way of reaching out essentially to the masses and to your average person. And I really liked that."
She told Newshub she also relished the challenge of doing something different in the therapy arena as usually with her own clients, she worked with long term relationships, rather than strangers who had been put together by the machinations of a TV show.
"Usually in relationship work, you're dealing with people who have been together for quite a period of time and who I would say have something to lose if they break up. Whereas in the show there's not as much of a strong sense of commitment, and they don't have much to lose if they call it quits in that relationship.
"Most of my couples [that I work with], for example, have kids, so if you're talking about breaking up or the relationship not working, it's really high stakes. With MAFS, these were different conversations."
Robertson was unable to discuss much about the upcoming series or the as-yet unannounced contestants, but told Newshub the dynamics of the couples prove to be fertile television.
"One moment that stood out was when somebody just doesn't have the ability to, accept an apology. That was a really interesting one. Just can't move through the behaviour, you know? Just can't go: 'Yeah, I hear your apology. And I'm going to put that to the side. Now we're going to move through into further relationships'. That really stood out.
"Also conversations around chemistry [between the participants] really stood out for me. You'll see in the couples where that is more pronounced - that was new."
While Robertson was at pains to stress that there is less conflict compared to the Australian counterpart, she explained the show still will address problems between couples - and it was important to do so.
"Something that was definitely reinforced was how we do conflict. Mainly that conflict does not mean a relationship is terrible and it doesn't mean that it has to end. And then, listening is going to be essential always and forever. We so often just want to jump in with our own thoughts and opinions and we are oriented around being right. It's like their identity is in question. But the ability to be wrong is really powerful."
But Robertson also revealed the participants were maybe conscious of how they may be portrayed in the show's final edit.
"We don't have as much conflict. I think New Zealand being a smaller country, people are much more careful about what they say, how they say it. They're much more likely to lose their job and have all of their friends turn against them. In such a small country, it's going to be more impactful how you present on TV.
"Maybe we're also not as kind of brash as a culture. I wondered about that throughout the season as well. But there's definitely still some conflict. I don't think it's at the level that Australia has, but you definitely see drama unfold and how people manage this is pretty different," she laughed.
As Newshub's time with Robertson neared its end, she revealed she's optimistic those watching will come for the chaos, but stay for the relationship lessons from Aiken and herself.
"As we were doing it all, I had what I would call two clients in my mind. One being the client in front of us on the couch and the other client being the audience and what they would be picking up from John and I.
"John and I are probably quite similar in that we're both very strong and assertive, we both bring that. I would say you see more of the assertiveness on TV than the softness that happens in real life. But it was important that we were clear about what was okay, what wasn't okay and how to do it better. I always tried to give some strategy or action to where we thought there was a problem, so that at home, maybe the client that's there picks up how to do something."
But one thing that helped in the deciding factor in Robertson doing the show was her husband of 16 years, Dave, who proved to be an invaluable ally.
"He was really excited - much more than I thought," she laughed.
"I thought he was going to actually have a negative reaction because he's not a huge reality TV show fan and is often quite critical. I thought, 'surely he's not going to support me doing this', and he just thought it was going to be great.
"That's probably due to the fact a big part of my work is quite hard and gritty and there's not a lot of light fluffiness," she muses.
"He felt the show would bring some fun into the mix, and it definitely did that!" she laughs.
Married at First Sight New Zealand comes to Three and ThreeNow in May.
