Is there a <10 relationship cap with bachelor/bachelorettes who aren't your spouse?

Question

Update: As of April 2016, the last two hearts are greyed-out for marriage candidates until you give them the bouquet. This question is obsolete.

I'm super about completion, and I've been grinding up the relationships with pretty much everybody. I married Haley quite some time ago (we just had our second kid) and I have her at 12, Penny was at 10 (she is currently 9) and Elliot is flopping between 10 and 9. Everyone else who isn't marked single is at 10 (except for my son), while all other single villagers are at 8. I have seen the 10 heart events for both Elliot (told him he was making me uncomfortable, because married to a girl) and Penny (told her I didn't like her that way, because I'm married, you homewrecker).

Considering the sheer amount of favorite gifts I've thrown at these people (and the implacable decay I've encountered with Elliot), I'm beginning to suspect that there was an update at some point that made sure you can't reach 10 hearts with a single villager who isn't your spouse/bouquet recipient. Can anyone confirm from an official source?

Answer 1

I believe you can only reach (and subsequently see) the 10-heart cut-scenes if you give each marriage candidate a bouquet. Here's a quote from the developer on a thread from Reddit:

wait, you can get to 10 hearts without giving a bouquet? That was the whole reason for the bouquet mechanic... to prevent players from seeing the 10-heart event unless they show their romantic interest in someone. whoops

From his comment at the end, it sounds like it might be possible (via a bug) to see those cut-scenes without the bouquet, but that will likely be fixed in a future update if history serves.

Update: Here's another comment from the developer on this (again, from Reddit):

I think the ability to non-romantically befriend the marriage candidates to 10 is a great idea, the only thing stopping me from doing it is the large amount of work involved. It might happen some day though. Now if only I could get my hands on Maru's cloning device...

Update 2: I spotted this in the change log for the upcoming 1.07 patch (available April 4, 2016):

The last two hearts are now greyed-out for marriage candidates until you give them the bouquet.

That confirms to me that hearts 9 & 10 are indeed unreachable without a bouquet.

Answer 2

I've never given anyone but Maru a bouquet, but I still have a couple of other single characters at 9 hearts (they're still grayed out on the Social menu, but you can see their true heart level when talking to them). I think that what happened is that I got the last increase with them from loved birthday presents (which can give more than one heart at a time), bringing them from 7 or less to 9 in one shot. In other words, the limit is implemented as "if you're at 8 or more hearts, you can't gain more", not as "you can't go over 8".