Moment man admits in couple’s therapy that he’s been pretending to go to work for two months after being made redundant – and tells his fiancée he’s £12,000 in debt

A bank manager was left reeling after admitting to his fiancee that he was ‘living a double life’ by pretending to go to work every day.

London-based Mike and Yasmin, who have been together for five years, appear in new Netflix show Blue Therapy, in which struggling couples agree to have their relationship therapy sessions filmed.

The two sat on therapist Karen Doherty’s couch and discussed the income inequality that caused the gap between them; teacher Yasmin earned twice as much as her partner of five years.

During their first session, Mike admitted that his reckless spending habits had left him £12,000 in debt.

Yasmin was surprised and said she estimated the figure was around £6,000, but that wasn’t the only secret Mike was keeping from her.

Mike admitted he had been laid off and lied about it for two months, pretending to leave home for work in the morning before ‘coming back’.

“It’s embarrassing to say, but I’ll get dressed like I’m going to work, we’ll leave the house at the same time, and then I’ll literally go around in circles and come back home as long as she goes to work,” Mike said.

A visibly shaken Yasmin admitted: ‘I feel completely and utterly blindsided. ‘He’s living another life by lying to me.’

As she left Karen’s office, Yasmin said to Mike, with whom she shares a son: ‘I can’t even look at his face right now.’

Mike and Yasmin are among seven Black couples participating in the Karen-led program.

The UKCP-certified therapist, who has 23 years’ experience, told the Daily Mail that the Blue Therapy show was both ‘authentic’ and ‘dramatic’, explaining: ‘Drama is there in every relationship, we just have to let it play out.

‘We need people to feel safe enough to explore together.’

Karen said she spent a total of seven hours counseling each couple on ‘universal’ issues such as early pregnancies, infidelity and increasing inequality between the caring partner and the partner whose career is taking off.

Despite its success, the original web series faced criticism after fans discovered that the show’s ‘therapist’ Denise was an actress.

Series creator Andy Amadi told Metro.co.uk that one half of the series’ main couple, Chioma, wanted to start acting as she addressed accusations of fabrication in a 2021 interview.

‘What I will say is this: The actors are real. “They are not actors, none of them are actors,” the director said.

‘It’s a reality show and I think everyone should enjoy it as a reality show. Real or fake… it depends on the viewers’ interpretation. none of the players [actors] Except Denise, who has acting experience.’

Karen confirmed Netflix’s adaptation, which promises to delve into ‘real couples’ and ‘real issues’, is ‘real, not performance based’. ‘That’s the beauty of it.’

In an interview with The Mirror ahead of the premiere of Blue Therapy on March 4, Andy said every couple featured in the Netflix series had been thoroughly vetted, adding: ‘They are 100 per cent real now.’

The two sat on therapist Karen Doherty’s couch and discussed the income inequality that caused the gap between them; teacher Yasmin earned twice as much as her partner of five years.

Admitting that it was ‘quite difficult’ to find contestants willing to ‘air their dirty laundry on camera’ for the ‘scripted’ online version, he explained how Andy assigned the actors ‘stories from real couples’.

But with the latest Netflix adaptation, ‘what you see is what you get’.

During the most intense moments of season one, Karen said: ‘There was a sense of overwhelm and having to leave. There was a sadness that people were caught off guard and they were crying.

‘There were some really sad stories, there was courage in people talking about very private matters.’

Karen also teased a couple who ‘might have broken up’ before confirming ‘the rest are significantly better’ after therapy.

All episodes of Blue Therapy are now streaming on Netflix.