Are Xander Boger and Vanessa Papa from ‘The Ultimatum’ still together now? They told us
Warning: This post contains spoilers for “The Ultimatum: Queer Love” finale and reunion.
Like the other couples on "The Ultimatum: Queer Love," Xander Boger and Vanessa Papa signed up for the Netflix show to figure out where their relationship was headed. After meeting in high school while dating best friends, the couple reconnected and began dating one another.
Speaking to TODAY.com, Xander says while she issued the ultimatum, Vanessa was the one who asked to go on the show.
"She was well aware I was looking for someone to start my life with. She was upfront and honest with me that she did not want to get married and that she did not want to have kids. When she found out about the show, she brought it to me," she says.
Vanessa, in a separate interview with TODAY.com, says, "I was at a point in my relationship where something needed to be decided. Xander wanted to be married and have this permanent connection; I wasn't sure that it was for me. We kept it going for years. This experience was the perfect chance to hold each other accountable."
What happened next? They got answers — and a villain label and a love triangle. Do they end up together? Before answering that question, let's recap what happened.
What happened during Vanessa and Xander's trial marriages?
Vanessa and Xander split up and pursued trial marriages with Rae Cheung-Sutton and Yoly Rojas, respectively.
Xander says this portion of the show was "hard" to imagine before it began.
"I had struggled with a lot of jealousy in my relationship with Vanessa so it was hard for me to feel like I could see her be intimate with somebody else. That obviously quickly changed once we got there," she says.
Xander is referring to the relationship that she developed with her own trial spouse, Yoly. The two fell for each other, going on to exchange "I love yous" in the three weeks they spent as a couple.
“She made me feel so comfortable. Our conversations were seamless. One of the biggest things that I feel like I was missing from Vanessa was we weren’t able to have in-depth conversations. I would try and like get deep and I would hit a wall. With Yoly, I knew her for three days and we were well past that," Xander says.
Vanessa tells TODAY.com she "just knew" something was brewing between her ex and Yoly. "I started to get worried about my relationship with Xander probably like the first week," she says. "I felt the loss of her. Something spiritual happened. Before I knew, I knew."
Vanessa says she "really struggled" during her trial marriage to Rae due to Xander and Yoly's growing connection, but she says Rae was the best "trial marriage partner" she could have asked for. While Vanessa and Rae didn't have a romantic connection, the two became intimate, which created tension between Vanessa and Lexi Goldberg, the person Rae came on the show with.
For Xander, though, breaking boundaries was integral fully immersing herself in the experience. "Whatever boundaries and things you talk about before the show kind of don't matter, because you're in it. To me, it felt like you had to be authentic and open to the process," she tells TODAY.com.
Do Vanessa and Xander get engaged?
Vanessa and Xander got back together following their separate trial marriages, but their relationship seemed to fray. Xander still harbored feelings for Yoly; meanwhile, Vanessa was awakening to her desire to commit.
"I wanted to give it a shot. I wanted to give it a chance and make sure I wasn't just letting go of something because I had feelings for this other person," Xander tells TODAY.com. "With conversations going on outside of what was filmed, I knew it in my heart it wouldn't be the best move to move forward with her."
They ultimately broke up, with Xander saying Vanessa "deserved more" than she could offer.
"I know that I've dreamt about proposing to you before. In all of those dreams, it was about us feeling a lot more confident and secure in our decisions," Xander said on decision day"And I feel like that's not where I'm we're at right now. Which sucks."
Vanessa replied in the episode that her "heart (had) been slowly breaking" over the two-month experiment, and said the show inspired positive personal change.
Speaking to TODAY.com, Xander says she had made up her mind long before the breakup scene. "I felt it earlier on. If I was really listening to my intuition, which I was not doing a good job of before, I probably wouldn't have even been on the show, honestly," she says.
"The space I had away from her, getting to observe her with other people, the things that she would say, the things that other cast members got upset with her about, which were understandable--those were the things that made me realize ... this is not the person for me," she says.
After the breakup, Xander met up with Yoly, who had gotten engaged to Mal, for one last tearful meeting.
"We were in very different situations. I was very clear on not being with Vanessa, whereas Yoly wasn't," she says.
The reunion gives another update about their relationship
At the reunion, Xander gave updates about her relationships with Vanessa and Yoly. Having tried to rekindle her relationship with Yoly, Xander is now single. She also had an on-camera reconciliation with Vanessa, where they agreed to start a new chapter.
"Romantically, there have been too many things that have happened," Xander said during the reunion, before revealing she didn't want Vanessa out of her life.
"You deserve someone who gives you their all and I wasn't doing that. But I'll never look back and be mad that I dated you," Vanessa said. Xander called Vanessa her "best friend."
"I feel like I'm happy to get my friend back," she said.
Vanessa tells TODAY.com that a friendship hasn't formed yet, adding that it's been "really hard" to have lost their partner "so quickly and so publicly."
"There are just so many levels of pain there," she says. "I want a relationship with her eventually but I'm still too hurt. I need to let a few years pass but I see a friendship in the future."
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
