Love Is Blind’s Erika says marrying Blake ‘started to feel really dangerous’ for her

Love Is Blind season 11’s Erika has opened up about why she and Blake called off their wedding, and she says it came down to logistics.

“I was fearful of allowing myself to fall in love without the logistics already squared away,” Erika told Tudum. But she fell for Blake anyway, even though he didn’t have a permanent base.

The pair connected quickly in the pods, and discovered they’d been living parallel lives in San Diego without ever meeting. She was running a hard kombucha brewery while he was starting a distillery. “It constantly felt like there was this invisible string pulling us together at different times in our life where we missed each other,” she said. “The producers pulled us aside, and they were like, ‘Do you guys know each other?’”

Back in Boston, Erika started having “direct conversations” about their future, including money. “Finances are something that, over time, you start to see some patterns and traits. Like, ‘What credit cards are they using? Are they paying with cash?’” she explained.

When it came to possibly buying a home together in St. Thomas, she needed to know what Blake could bring to the table. “I couldn’t foot the bill all on my own because I already have a mortgage,” she said. “So we [had to figure out if] we both have the ability to split 50/50 rent or buy a property.”

Meeting Blake’s friends didn’t help either. Erika said his inner circle grilled her on whether she could handle island life. “You have his two closest friends kind of heed a warning, and in the moment I almost felt attacked,” she said. Things got worse when one of his friends refused to speak to her at all. Blake said he kept his distance at a later outing to protect her from that friend’s judgment, but Erika felt shut out.

So, why did Erika end her engagement to Blake on Love Is Blind?

In the end, the biggest issue was kids. Erika said that in the pods, Blake committed to starting a family within five years, but once they were together, that became 10. “That is a really big difference for a woman,” she said. “Not being able to align on kids, finances, where to live, these are the big core [issues]. That’s everything.”

Once the wedding invitations went out, the pressure became real. “Well, if logistics aren’t in your favor, is love then strong enough to go through all this?” she said.

With a week to go, Blake had been to Erika’s house, met her dogs and her parents, and seen her at work, but she still hadn’t experienced any of his world. “‘I can’t marry you, I haven’t seen enough of your life,’” she remembers thinking. “It just started to feel really dangerous to get any closer to the wedding having already been through a divorce.”

Blake felt more confident. “There’s nothing I would change about this,” he told her. “But this isn’t our real life,” Erika replied.

With Erika due on a work trip and Blake heading back to sea, they talked about what married life would really look like. “If we want to stay together, then we have to see each other,” Erika told him. Blake didn’t push back. “I think you need to follow your heart and do what you need to do,” he said. “And hopefully that [means you end] up with me, but we’ll see. I don’t want to let you go, but I don’t want to hold you back either.”

The couple decided to leave the experiment, and Blake admitted he felt a little relieved. “I think it’s the right move,” he said.

But Erika says it wasn’t necessarily the end for them. “It was more ‘Let’s call the wedding off and see what it’s like on the other side,’” she said. “We wanted to continue to try it on our own terms. It was something that we felt like was a better option. I am grateful that we took the path that we wanted to take together.”

Whether they’re still together will be revealed at the upcoming reunion, which you can actually watch a whole day early. Find out how to here!

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