FYI’s reality series “Seven Year Switch” has ended in divorce for one spouse-swapping couple.
On Tuesday night’s two-hour season finale, Atlanta couple Leah and Neal Carney chose to end their eight-year marriage after Neal ultimately couldn’t forgive Leah for having an affair.
After the two participated in experimental “switch therapy” for two weeks — each living with one half of married couple Aleshia and Houston Osemwengie of Las Vegas — they reunited only to be driven further apart by Neal’s realization that he now wants children (and Leah does not).
When the show’s two experts came to their house on decision day, Leah blamed the experiment for making things worse between her and her husband.
“It has not been anything but hurtful actually … to my marriage, which it was supposedly helping the marriage in some way. I don’t see how,” she says in the episode. “It has not been beneficial, it has not been helpful.”
Leah says the show’s spouse-swapping made Neal less invested in their marriage than he was before the experiment, while he claims he just couldn’t get past her prior infidelities.
“I feel like respect in our relationship was lost in the second affair,” he tells the camera. “At this point in our relationship, I just don’t see how it’s possible to reconcile.
“The hurt outweighs the love that I have for Leah. I feel that I have to guard my heart.”
The Carneys’ divorce aside, the other three “Seven Year Switch” couples — the Osemwengies, Danielle and Eric Wolf, as well as CW McGee and Rachel Farris — chose to stay married.
In happier news, Aleshia and Houston also revealed to People on Tuesday that they got pregnant a month after returning from the switch and are expecting a baby girl soon.
“Switch therapy definitely has had a positive, lasting effect on our marriage,” Aleshia told the magazine.