The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On season 2 couple Antonio Mattei and Roxanne Kaiser’s relationship only got more complicated when Alex Chapman entered the chat.
After Antonio issued Roxanne the ultimatum — move forward with an engagement or end their relationship — on the Netflix series, she entered a trial marriage with Alex, who declared that Roxanne didn’t “respect” her original partner.
“He was speaking into existence all my deepest insecurities. I mean, Roxanne is just this crazy successful woman, and my history has not been the same,” Antonio told Us Weekly ahead of the first batch of episodes dropping on Netflix earlier this month. “I’ve always kind of grappled with that. Like, ‘God, does she really want to be with me? Is she settling for me? What is it?’ And then for him to say [that], it hurt. It really hurt.”
Antonio noted, however, that the experiment is supposed to be “about exploring and articulating how we fall” in relationships.
“So Alex heard all the ugly things about my relationship with Roxanne. So for him to have that opinion, I get it. … I just don’t know that I would’ve felt that I had the same authority he did to speak on the situation,” Antonio explained.
Things were often tense between Antonio and Alex, who swapped partners for three weeks on the reality show, taking another awkward turn when Alex insisted that Antonio sleep in the same bed as his OG partner Kat Shelton during their trial marriage.
“My first thought [when Alex said that] was that Roxanne and him slept together, and so he wanted Kat to sleep with me so she couldn’t be mad at him,” Antonio admitted to Us. “That’s really where I initially started out and pretty much the opinion that I held until, you know, [I] found out that that wasn’t the case.”
Roxanne, for her part, wasn’t happy with Kat or Alex when she learned Alex’s parents texted Kat about Roxanne’s visit to their house.
“I thought it was really strange,” Roxanne said. “We had a very intimate hangout at his parents’ house when I was there at the lake. And I thought it went really well. Like, everything was really good. There was no drama. And even thereafter, when his mom was talking to Kat, I felt like she still was asking Alex what he wanted and what was challenging for him. And I just thought all of it was a little much. But, you know, end of the day, I don’t know his family that well. I spent one really good day with them. And you know, texting is strange. You gotta be careful with texting.”
Roxanne added that she felt like there were “some weird things going on” with Alex throughout their relationship.
During her own journey, Roxanne wasn’t shy about her issues with the idea of marriage — and her time with Alex did give her a new perspective.
“[I spent] my whole life not really wanting to get married, but because of this experiment, it made me realize that I don’t have to be with someone like Alex, who checks all these boxes to, maybe, commit to someone long-term,” she explained. “I really do love Antonio and I realize that he doesn’t check every box, maybe, for other people’s standards — but he checks them for mine.”
Fans will have to tune into the final two episodes of The Ultimatum, which start streaming on Netflix Wednesday, August 30, to learn whether Alex and Kat and/or Roxanne and Antonio are still together.
