Is it time to end that toxic relationship?

That's how I feel about my obsession with Married at First Sight.

I know, because I'm a sensible woman, that it's bad for me.

I know my time could be better spent doing something other than sitting on the couch several nights per week yelling at the contestants.

I know I'm wasting my time constantly updating the Twitter #mafsau feed to read some of the most astute, and hilarious, opinions on the show.

I know that much of it is probably scripted, maybe they are actually paid actors, and I don't really care what happens to most of them ...

But, even after all these years, I still love love. I still believe that people might be lucky enough to find the one. And maybe, just maybe, that might happen on the television right in front of us.

For a while I thought this season, season 11, might well be the best season ever. The final vows are on March 31 and only five couples - Eden and Jayden, Lauren and Jono, Jade and Ridge, Sarah and Tim, and Tori and Jack - have made it through.

You can write Lauren and Jono off. We've all known for weeks that Jono and eliminated contestant Ellie have been bumping tummies since the show finished filming. I do like Lauren, she's grown on me. Jono is a bit of a simp, he's nowhere near good enough for Lauren, but I give his relationship with Ellie my every blessing, even if it did start while he was still "married" to Lauren. Lauren will find her way.

I kinda hope Jade and Ridge make it work outside the experiment and that he becomes a "deece" partner and role model in her daughter's life.

The others I don't care for one way or the other. If anything, I'll remain invested in Tori and Jack's escapades, just to see how much juice they suck out of their 15 minutes of fame. Seems like they're going for it hard. At the final dinner party earlier in the week, she leaned over to kiss him and said "Just fake it". It seems that's the philosophy of their whole relationship. All the power to these young Gen Z kids in the gig economy, even though these two make me want to vomit. Apparently there's an OnlyFans channel on its way. Lord help us.

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So after 32 episodes, what have I learned? If you can't take something away from any experience then what's the point?

First up, and this is the main one, and I thank brides Lucinda and Andie for it: Just because a woman is alone post-40 doesn't mean she should settle for some companionable bloke who doesn't tick most of her boxes. Once you reach an age, you're sensible enough to realise no man is going to tick all those boxes. But most of us have been in a relationship that didn't tick all the boxes and who wants to go there again?

The relationships of the "older" contestants, Lucinda and Timothy, Andie and Richard, were also a reminder that men can become very set in their ways. Sure, a lot of the younger lads seemed to be too, but Timothy and Richard set a new standard for rigidity. Timothy gave a glimmer of hope when he kind of let the walls down around homestay week but they went back up quicker than his dogs devoured those raw chicken wings.

And speaking of ... that was one of his biggest red flags for me. I was unsure why his apartment was in such a mess. Surely someone was coming to throw the occasional chicken wing at his pups but were they not watering his plants or picking up the puppy poop off his floor? I would have left the experiment the moment I saw his apartment. Sorry, I'm a neat freak. And really, raw chicken on the lounge room floor? Ah no.

But there's more than food safety lessons at play here. If you can't walk away from MAFS knowing two things, there's no point tuning in.

First up, never assume anything about anyone else's relationship. Things might look all loved up from the outside, or not, but you will never know the true feelings of the people involved unless you are one of them. The best thing to do is to concentrate on your own relationship, rather than comparing it to anyone else's.

And, if you're not in a relationship, you need to remind yourself that perhaps that's not as bad as you think it is. Life could be a lot worse. You could be in a relationship with a gaslighter, a narcissist, a man who doesn't know how to do up the buttons on his shirt or one with intimacy issues.

Remember, sometimes the most perfect relationship is the one you have with yourself.