The Bachelorette alum Jason Tartick says he still keeps crying over his ex-fiancee Kaitlyn Bristowe.
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"I want to preface this, so that when people hear this and think I'm skating or surfacing, I just get so worried about the repercussions of what I say. And I care, still, so much for her, and it's really, really hard for me to have these conversations. So, I'll do my best."
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Chris asked Jason if his breakup with the former The Bachelorette star was a shock to him prior to their August announcement, and Jason started to cry and responded, "I feel like it was on the horizon."
Jason tried to compose himself and joked, "You haven't even asked a good question!"
He went on to say, "It was a tough time, so to go back to it, it's tough. I'm also bad at that, I've worked on it. I've always been someone who hates showing my emotion -- I hate it, I hate it, I hate it."
Jason recalled how some fans had accused him of "trying to force tears" on The Bachelorette's fourteenth season starring Becca Kufrin.
"I was [actually] trying to hide every tear, and then when the cameras are off, I'm going to go nuts and cry! I'm trying to get better at it," Jason said.
"I'm very sensitive these days, especially with this topic. [I loved her] so much!"
Chris pointed out how Jason's feelings for Kaitlyn clearly run deep to this day, which made him burst into tears a second time.
"Give me a second. I'll get it together here. I saw [the split coming]. I saw it. The way I would say it is there was deteriorating complacency. F-ck," Jason said. "So that's my answer."
Jason therefore clarified how there was "no shock" to his amicable breakup after more than four years of dating.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOWThe "Trading Secrets" podcast host continued, "I think my stance is -- I just didn't want to believe it, right? And I think that's a takeaway for me, is that if you run from problems or hide or don't address them, eventually it's going to catch up."
Jason advised listeners to "step into hard times" rather than ignore them.
"I've put so much work into trying to understand emotions, because for so long, I buried emotions. And now that I get it, it's like a floodgate in my life. For so long, I just masked it," Jason said.
"So, yeah, I've cried more in the past six months than I've cried my entire life! But that's with all things, and I feel good about it too. I finally name emotions and understand them, but I'm still so bad at showcasing them."
Jason even confessed that he was "so embarrassed" in that moment to be breaking down.
"It was just a really, really tough time," Jason concluded.
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Given Jason was an emotional wreck, Chris pointed out how people should never belittle anyone who's just lost a significant other.
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"You are mourning the loss of something, and it's different than losing a significant other or [my wife, Lauren Zima], losing her dad. But at the same time, you are still losing something, and you're losing someone."
Chris continued, "And what's also difficult about that is that someone still exists. They didn't go away. They did not die, you're going to see them."
Jason did, in fact, see Kaitlyn at Chris and Lauren's wedding last month. It was the pair's first reunion since Jason moved out of their shared Nashville home, and it was -- based on witness accounts -- a fun and lighthearted event for the former couple.
"And you're going to see them on social media," Chris noted. "With a lot of these breakups, there's not a clean break up anymore, and that's kind of a sign of the times we live in. But that makes it doubly as difficult for you."
Jason shared how in his split from Kaitlyn, "no one wins" because there are two people who feel "lost" -- and "lost in a hard way."
Jason told Chris that four-and-half years with a partner is a really long time.
"And they were really important years of our lives, and so no one is winning. You're both losing and growing, and so that's what's tough. But it's the reality of the situation," Jason explained.
"There is a lot of time, energy and pain for the both of us. I can only speak from my experience... but four-and-a-half years? It's family at that point! Their family becomes your family and vice versa."
He added, "It's so easy for the outside to critique or pick teams... but I'm just trying my best to look in the mirror and see what I could've done better."
Jason said one of those things would be not addressing things upfront and letting problems simmer.
"When little baby paper cuts go untreated, they become infections," Jason acknowledged. "And if the infections don't get treated, the end is inevitable, I feel like."
When Kaitlyn and Jason made their breakup public knowledge in August, they appeared to be on good terms.
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And during the September 19 episode of the "Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe" podcast, Kaitlyn took a shot at Jason by claiming he "didn't protect" her from online hate and scrutiny after their split.
The former The Bachelorette star said she "knew" she was going to get most of the hate from fans for ending her engagement to Jason after four years together.
"It was already my fault when we weren't posting enough and people were questioning everything. It was always like, 'God, you're ruining another good thing! This is what you do!'" Kaitlyn recalled.
"We talked about protecting each other through it because, of course, when you go through breakups you want to have your side and someone to have their side," she elaborated. "You want to justify it and say all these things, but we really agreed on protecting each other."
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Kaitlyn therefore said when Jason had "leaned into that sad" late-August post about moving out of the Nashville home he and Kaitlyn had shared with their two dogs, she was annoyed.
In that Instagram video, Jason had a friend helping him move, and the former banker from Seattle noted how the process "physically and mentally" sucked. He also shared footage of the dogs, Ramen and Pinot, looking sad while he put his belongings into a moving truck.
"I was like, 'Bro!'" Kaitlyn vented with a laugh. "He pulled at heartstrings and it didn't protect me because it made me look like I was taking the dogs away from him."
Kaitlyn said that she ultimately confronted Jason about the post.
"The messages that I got after that were just [awful]. And he was like, 'Well, I didn't get one message about it.' And I was like, 'I did!'" Kaitlyn explained.
"And it just made me really sad because the dogs are literally our No. 1 priority through this. We are both obsessed with them, and we have made it very clear that we're going to be sharing them."
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Kaitlyn recently revealed that she and Jason had failed to prioritize their relationship and that they weren't "choosing" each other on a daily basis.
Kaitlyn insisted no one was at fault or is to blame for the demise of their relationship, but she said social media -- and outside pressures to put on "a performative show" for their fans -- definitely "played a part" in their breakup. That's why she decided to take a hiatus from posting content for about two weeks.
Fans assumed Kaitlyn and Jason's romance was on the rocks when they weren't making any progress in terms of wedding planning.
Breakup rumors then began to swirl in July because Kaitlyn and Jason hadn't posted anything about each other on Instagram for about a month.
And when Instagram users flooded Kaitlyn and Jason's comments with questions and concerns about the status of their relationship, neither Kaitlyn or Jason responded.
Kaitlyn fueled speculation her relationship was in trouble -- or over completely -- when she took to Instagram Stories on August 1 with an angry message.
"I cannot believe the audacity of people to expect things from me when I haven't even been able to process things for myself," Kaitlyn wrote, according to Us Weekly.
Needing to "process things" seemed to suggest she and Jason had split up and called off their engagement.
The Dancing with the Stars 29 winner continued in her since-deleted post, "Have a f-cking heart. You're scaring me with your comments and demands. I'm almost worried about YOU."
While Kaitlyn and Jason breakup rumors were circulating, Kaitlyn's first fiance, her The Bachelorette 11 winner Shawn Booth, announced he's going to be a dad with a woman named Audrey "Dre" Joseph, who had taken professional and promotional photos of him and is a member at his gym.
Shawn just welcomed his first baby on December 12.
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Jason asked Kaitlyn out on their first date in January 2019, and their romance moved quickly.
Jason moved from his place in Washington to live with Kaitlyn in Nashville in June 2019, and then the couple adopted their two dogs together and got engaged in Spring 2021.
In June 2022, Kaitlyn told Us that she and Jason planned to start trying for a baby right after their wedding. (But now that Kaitlyn and Jason are over, she confessed that she's "terrified" to have kids).
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
