Janelle Han’s Health Battle Has Completely Changed Her Approach To Her MAFS Relationship

Married At First Sight often sparks a myriad of emotions in contestants as they navigate the ups and downs of their new relationships. For Janelle Han, the ride has been nothing short of a rollercoaster, especially with her discovering this week that her husband Adam Seed cheated on her with another bride, Claire Nomarhas.

Han "went through all the stages of grief" when she learnt of Seed's unfaithfulness, especially because she had continuously backed him throughout the social experiment, even when Nomarhas' husband Jesse Burford had earlier suspected an affair.

"I was basically in denial," the beauty influencer and TikTok creator tells Refinery29 Australia.

The bombshell was even harder to swallow after Seed had promised Han and her brothers at their wedding that he would never cheat on her, despite him having cheated in past relationships.

"I saw so many red flags from the start, but I always told myself that I'm going to give this experiment one hundred per cent," she explains. "I really was putting my walls down and giving it everything that I've got.

"And for most of the experiment, Adam and I were great. We were getting to know each other more every day."

As they shared more with one another and practised open communication, Han recalls an important conversation she had with Seed about her health. The 28-year-old says it took place during 'Confessions Week'. Han says her 'confession' to Seed was imperative to share as it explained why she was so adament about finding a serious partner with financial stability.

"My confession was that I'm sick, and it explains why I am the way I am," says Han, sharing she has two conditions — Lupus and Lynch syndrome.

Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease where the body's immune system attacks its own normal cells, while Lynch syndrome indicates that a gene involved in repairing specific DNA errors does not work properly. It can be linked to an increased risk of Lynch syndrome-related cancers, and in Han's case, is linked to an increased risk of bowel cancer.

"If I get pregnant, my lupus can flare up and I can get really sick," she explains. "With the other condition, Lynch syndrome, I carry a gene [linked to] bowel cancer. My dad even has a colostomy bag and he got diagnosed quite young. My grandma died from it."

Han explains that having this condition requires annual colonoscopies to monitor her health, and will likely have future procedures that impact her fertility.

"I also have to get a hysterectomy one day," she reveals. "So, I have a time clock that really stops me from having kids if I choose to have them one day. My doctor recommended that I have to do IVF or surrogacy if I want to have kids, and that's a lot of financial strain on a couple."

It's for this reason she wanted to speak openly about it with Seed, and also ask him about his financial situation.

"I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who can't financially support me if I choose to have kids," she says. "That's why I'm not afraid to ask the big questions early on in the experiment like, what is your stream of income, are you financially stable, and if I wanted to have kids in three years, could that be possible?"

Han says that while this conversation was filmed, it didn't make it to air. Despite this, she wants to continue being open about her condition as a daughter of Singaporean-Chinese immigrants. There's often a stigma within some Asian communities when it comes to speaking about fertility, and she wants to help normalise these conversations.

"Having kids not the traditional way isn't exactly ideal in some Asian families and I wish I could be a voice for that," she explains, "It should be normalised talking about your health condition because it should never be something you're ashamed of."

The reality star also reveals that despite their differences throughout the social experiment, Seed was "compassionate" when Han shared these details about her health.

However, as viewers are aware, the couple's relationship has broken down in recent episodes for unrelated reasons, and Han hints she'll be holding Seed accountable for his cheating in tonight's dinner party episode.

"Going into the dinner party, I wanted to see how remorseful Adam was, and from what I've gathered so far, Adam was not remorseful. He was just sorry he got caught," she says.

The TV star chose to have this conversation in front of her co-stars because if she had it with him individually, she believes "it was not going to go anywhere".

"As you have seen [on-screen] in the past, he is such a defensive person. Having a conversation with Adam doesn't make sense because he cannot string together a full sentence. I just knew if I had a conversation with him, it was not going to go anywhere," she says.

"I also knew that he was somehow going to make it my problem, not his problem. I just thought that if I was going to confront him, it's going to be in front of everyone where he cannot weasel out of it. I knew I needed support [from my co-stars] and I got that support for sure."

Viewers will witness the fallout of this drama when all of the contestants gather for the weekly dinner party tonight. If there's any advice Han would have for any women who've similarly been cheated on, she says it's simple.

"You deserve to be with someone who loves you and who will never betray you," she says. "At the end of the day, if you can forgive that person, that's your choice. But you have to know your worth and that cheating should not be tolerated."