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Luke Tells Dr. Pepper Why He Won't Kiss Kate In This Exclusive 'MAFS' Clip

by Megan Walsh

On Married at First Sight, Luke and Kate's relationship has been a series of stops and starts — mostly stops. Luke has been distant to Kate since their wedding, and sometimes outright cruel. He said kissing her made him feel repulsed, which earned him a talking-to from Pastor Cal. Now Dr. Pepper is here to get to the bottom of things in this exclusive clip. And their conversation reveals why Luke won't kiss Kate on MAFS.

The clip opens with Dr. Pepper Schwartz arriving at Luke and Kate's home. She decides to talk to each of them separately to find out what's been going on in their relationship, especially because Luke has been saying "some alarming things" to the producers. Luke is stressed out by the prospect of talking to Dr. Pepper alone, and the resultant conversation doesn't really seem to assuage his worries.

Dr. Pepper gets right to the point. The producers informed her that Luke was feeling pressured by Kate to make things more physical: she wanted to kiss him and he did not want to be kissed. Dr. Pepper wanted to know if that was how he had been in his previous relationships. Luke said it wasn't, which made this situation all the more unusual.

It all comes down to the fact that Luke isn't attracted to Kate, which he reiterates in a confessional: "I care very deeply about Kate but I can't force myself to have feelings that aren't there yet." That's why he won't kiss her.

Dr. Pepper asked if he expected to be attracted to her and how he thought that would happen; Luke answered that he did, and he hoped that the attraction would grow naturally. "It's just that I don't want to be pressured into anything," he said, before raising another issue. "When she drinks, she's persistent. And she wants to kiss me, you know. I'm not about it, I don't know what else to tell you."

Luke had previously told the producers that he thought Kate drank a lot, though it takes prodding from Dr. Pepper for him to say she has an actual drinking problem. Even then he vacillates; Kate drinks more than he does, but he's not sure that means she has a problem. The show then pointedly cuts in a montage of Kate drinking while Luke looks on warily.

"It's hard to talk to Dr. Pepper because I don't have the answers she's looking for," Luke says in a confessional. "I've known Kate for less than a month so I don't know what normal drinking is for her, but it seems like it's a lot."

Luke hasn't discussed Kate's drinking with her, but he suspects she's using alcohol as a "coping mechanism" to deal with their marriage. Dr. Pepper points out that if this is something that bothers him or that he finds harmful, he needs to talk about it with Kate. Luke wonders if that would only make things worse, but Dr. Pepper knows you have to work through things in an intimate relationship.

Perhaps Luke is hesitant to bring things up because he's already been critical of Kate over things she has no control over — like his attraction to her, or lack thereof. Luke shouldn't feel pressured to do things he doesn't want to do and he should feel comfortable bringing up legitimate concerns, but he has to keep Kate in the loop without making her feel terrible about herself for no reason.

It might take a few more visits from Dr. Pepper before Luke and Kate are on the right track. Every Tuesday on Lifetime, viewers can see if they get any closer to making their marriage work.