Alexios has been rumored during this time to be the lover of Empress Maria of Alania, the daughter of King Bagrat IV of Georgia, who had been successively married to Michael VII Doukas and his successor Nikephoros III Botaneiates, and who is renowned for her beauty.

Alexios has arranged for Maria to stay on the palace grounds, and it was thought that he was considering marrying her.

However, his mother consolidates the Doukas family connection by arranging the Emperor's marriage to Irene Doukaina, granddaughter of the Caesar John Doukas, the uncle of Michael VII, who would not have supported Alexios otherwise.

As a measure intended to keep the support of the Doukai, Alexios has restored Constantine Doukas, the young son of Michael VII and Maria, as co-emperor and a little later had betrothed him to his own first-born daughter Anna, who moved into the Mangana Palace with her fiancé and his mother.

This situation changes drastically, however, when Alexios' first son John II Komnenos is born in 1087: Anna's engagement to Constantine is dissolved, and she is moved to the main Palace to live with her mother and grandmother.

Alexios becomes estranged from Maria, who is stripped of her imperial title and retired to a monastery, and Constantine Doukas is deprived of his status as co-emperor.

Nevertheless, he remains in good relations with the imperial family and succumbs to his weak constitution soon afterwards.