Spoilers for the entire season of The Ultimatum season 3 ahead. Season 3 of The Ultimatum introduced Netflix viewers to a cast of several couples dealing with relationship issues, who were hesitant to get married for reasons ranging from reasonable to please reconsider whether you should be together at all. From the season's first episodes, fans considered Aria De’Westbrooks and Scotty Lewis to be on the bleak end of that spectrum. Both long distance and communication issues threatened to break up the couple of three years—and that's before their respective trial marriages illuminated what they each needed to work on.
So, did Aria and Scotty's relationship survive the stress of The Ultimatum? And what major twist did the couple reveal months after filming ended? Read on for our breakdown of Scotty and Aria's time on The Ultimatum season 3.
What happened between Scotty and Aria on 'The Ultimatum' season 3?
In a typical season of The Ultimatum, most couples arrive on the show with the girlfriend wanting to get married and the boyfriend hesitant. Scotty, a 30-year-old influencer, and Aria, a 25-year-old aesthetic nurse, were one of the rare couples where the opposite was true, with Scotty putting his foot down about himself and Aria both getting engaged and living in the same city, after being long-distance for the past nine months. Aria was hesitant to move and make a sacrifice for him while she was at the peak of her career.
Once the show's process started going, the bigger issues between Scotty and Aria became apparent via their trial marriages. Aria matched up with Caleb and the pair arguably had the best cohabitation period of the season. They got along extremely well, and they were able to talk through their baggage—including Aria's trauma from her parents' divorce. Aria also recognized the differences in how Caleb acted in a partnership versus Scotty, and she said multiple times that she wanted Scotty to act more like Caleb, instead of how defensive and confrontational he could be with her.
Meanwhile, Scotty paired up with Zaina, and the pair quickly bonded over both being the ones who were ready for marriage while their partners weren't. Scotty and Zaina's trial marriage seemed perfectly pleasant...until one telling conversation. Scotty suggested two date ideas, and Zaina gave reasonable reasons for shutting them down: She's afraid of heights, so a hot air balloon wasn't an option, and cryotherapy didn't sound pleasant to someone who doesn't like being cold. However, Scotty reacted to this like she was rejecting him personally, instead of understanding that her not wanting to do those activities had nothing to do with him. Then he found out she ate without him, and he got snippy. "This is not what I was looking for in a trial wife," he said. "Someone that just eats without me." (In case my use of "petty" slipped by earlier, one of Scotty's recent IG posts is a reel of himself and Aria going on a hot air balloon ride, with the caption, "The hot air balloon ride wasn’t a bad idea after all.")
Even before the trial marriages started, Scotty and Aria's communication issue became clear in the season 3 premiere, during one of the cast's group-dating mixers. Aria had started crying after seeing Zaina and Scotty hit it off, and he'd responded by yelling at her for "coming at [him] foul." Between that and the blow-up with Zaina, Scotty's approach to conflict was one of Aria's biggest hesitations regarding getting married. In this respect, Zaina was a great trial wife for him, because she didn't feed into his need to win every argument, regardless of whether he was in the wrong. Scotty even acknowledged that he needed to learn to find the resolution in an argument and not just fight in circles to prove himself right. But he still ended his trial marriage with one last stubborn argument. Zaina ended the cohabitation by saying that Scotty doesn't "deserve to experience" her presence.
By the time they reunited, Scotty and Aria needed to work through a lot. He still had his defensive argument style, which Aria pointed more directly to as something they needed to work on. There was also a little bit of jealousy on Scotty's part, along with confusion about whether Caleb and Aria had formed an emotional connection during their trial marriage. (For more on the Aria-Caleb-Mariah of it all, read our breakdown on Caleb and Mariah.) That's a lot to deal with in three weeks—or an episode and a half of show time—and The Ultimatum only included a handful of scenes where they discussed their issues.
Right after they reunited, Aria made it clear that their arguments before going on the show felt like Scotty was more focused on defending himself, rather than hearing her side of things. Scotty argued that she could do the same, and she did try to interrupt him as he was sharing his side of the argument at some points. Later, Scotty brought up that she didn't naturally practice non-sexual physical touch, and she responded that it was something she needed to work on. (That'd been an area of growth she brought up during her trial marriage with Caleb as well).
However, the conversation took a turn when, again, Scotty got snippy, and told her, "I'm tired of you getting emotional because I give you constructive feedback." After more of this "constructive feedback," Aria started crying, and a stone-faced Scotty said, "Be irritated. I'm gonna be honest." Essentially, neither was sure how to give what the other was asking for—which wasn't a good place to enter a marriage.
Do Scotty and Aria get engaged on 'The Ultimatum' season 3?
The short answer is yes! In their Ultimatum Day speeches in the season 3 finale, Scotty gave his speech about how the show challenged them, and Aria said that she wanted to give him more trust and compromise with him in their relationship. They take a moment to revel in how far they've come and tear up together before Scotty gets down on one knee, and Aria says yes.
So, Scotty and Aria do end The Ultimatum engaged. But that's not the end of their story...
Are Scotty and Aria still together after 'The Ultimatum' season 3?
In what may be a first for the show, Scotty and Aria have a short engagement of just 24 hours. At the reunion, Aria reveals that, after the finale was filmed, she realized she felt things were moving too quickly and like she had made a mistake. He agreed, and they did move in together, but their "biggest issue...the way that [they] have conflict" continued.
In the reunion, Aria shared that she and Scotty went back to their old patterns for about a year until she issued a different ultimatum. She reasoned that if they didn't go to therapy together, which she had been asking about for a while, then they'd break up. Between that and some personal tragedies—including Aria's grandmother dying and a miscarriage—they ended things. A tearful Aria summed it up to him by saying, "You don't love me the way I wanted to be loved."
During the finale, Scotty says he hopes that "this isn't the end" of his and Aria's story, but adds that both of them being single right now is probably for the best. In an interview with Today, Scotty admitted that he needs to go on a "journey of healing," including working through his "fear and apprehension towards therapy."
"We are taking some time away from each other. We’re broken up, and I’m honestly really heartbroken." he told the outlet. "I needed to be better for her, and in the moment, I wasn’t. For me, I know that there’s so much work that I need to do in order to be a better individual for myself first. And you know, I love Aria with my whole heart."
"I have so many regrets about conversations, or how I showed up, or how I didn’t show up for Aria, and miscommunications with Zaina too," he added of his time on the show. "I brought so much of my hurt into this experience. I know hurt Aria, where she felt like she was trying so hard, and I was just dismissive of her effort. I wish I could take that back. I wish I could tell her and show her how much she means to me."
