The Bachelor alum Ben Higgins has revealed why his wife, Jessica "Jess" Clarke Higgins, didn't attend The Golden Wedding as his date.

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The Golden Bachelor couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist got married in a televised wedding on January 4.

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Ben made an appearance at the wedding and hit the dance floor with The Golden Bachelor contestant Leslie Fhima, but his wife was nowhere to be found, prompting questions from concerned fans.

"To answer the question on where [Jess] was during the wedding. She could not get off work because she runs a crazy busy skin clinic," Ben, 34, wrote via Instagram Stories on Friday, January 5.

"And she really cares about her clients and seeing them as often as they need! Plus, like most of us, after the holidays, it would be really hard to take another 3 days off work."

The Season 20 The Bachelor star went on to insist, "We both wanted to be there, but I had to represent the Higgins at The Golden Wedding! Back home with her and [our dog] Waylon now!"

Although Ben wasn't able to enjoy Gerry and Theresa's wedding at La Quinta Resort & Club in California with Jess, he had about 50 fellow Bachelor Nation alums to party with -- including Kaitlyn Bristowe, Tayshia Adams, Ashley Iaconetti, Jared Haibon, Jape Roper, Tanner Tolbert, and Wells Adams.

Ben also got a front-row seat to Bachelor in Paradise alum Brayden Bowers' marriage proposal to The Bachelor 27 alum Christina Mandrell.

Ben wrote a sweet message to Jess via Instagram when they celebrated their second wedding anniversary in November 2023.

"[Two] years ago we made a commitment. The commitment that everyday makes me smile with joy, feel a peace in my soul, has allowed every part of me to be even more free than before, brought a hope for the future I never knew existed, helped me see the faults that I want to change and brought a lot of laughs," Ben wrote.

"In the words of my wife [Jess], 'Marriage is great, every night we get to have a sleepover with your best friend.' With Jesus as our foundation and a loving commitment to each other, I am so excited for every day in our long future together."

Ben and Jess met on social media and went Instagram official in January 2019. They got engaged in March 2020.

Ben and Jess purchased their first home together in Denver, CO, in December 2020, and the couple got married in a romantic Tennessee wedding in November 2021. (Ben and Jess initially planned to wed in 2020, but they pushed back their nuptials to the following year due to the coronavirus pandemic).

Ben previously revealed in June 2020 that he'd like to start a family within a few years and probably adopt at least one child with Jess.

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Jess stayed by Ben's side during difficult times, such as a "breakdown" in 2021 that left Ben soul-searching and reaching out to family and friends for support.

Ben previously admitted that he "lost" himself from being so wrapped up in The Bachelor fame and struggled to navigate life once that attention from others "started to fade."

Ben had selected former flight attendant Lauren Bushnell as his winner and the pair got engaged on The Bachelor's 20th season, which aired in March 2016.

After The Bachelor wrapped, the pair starred on Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After?, but they announced their split in May 2017, about six months after the spinoff's finale aired on Freeform.

"I think doing that show was a mistake for our relationship. It was not a mistake professionally, necessarily, but it was a mistake for our romantic relationship," Ben told The Bachelorette alum Jason Tartick on the September 4 episode of his "Trading Secrets" podcast.

Ben elaborated how his priorities were "misaligned at the time," adding, "I was young and naive. I thought we could get through [it]. So when we broke up, Happily Ever After? stopped... I don't know why I said 'yes' to it."

Ben said when he and Lauren filmed that spinoff, they were already "struggling through stuff" as a couple.

The "stuff" presumably included how Ben had professed his love to runner-up JoJo Fletcher on The Bachelor before proposing marriage to Lauren at the Final Rose Ceremony. Lauren even told The New York Post's Page Six in May 2022 that she had "hit rock bottom" after The Bachelor.

"We'd have really great times and then really hard times... There were many reasons why we did not work as a couple, but I think that show was going to be -- I would say impossible for us to have a healthy relationship through it and coming out of it," Ben explained of Happily Ever After?.

"Because we became working partners. We had no time. Any time that we had privately, away from the cameras, we were exhausted, or I was working."

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Ben admitted he and Lauren stopped communicating and expressing their true feelings to each other.

"We weren't sitting down and [asking], like, 'How are you?' The normal stuff that I have now with [my wife Jess Clarke], like, 'How are you doing? How do you feel about our relationship?' That was gone!" Ben said.

"It had been gone for months, and so we were in survival mode, at that point."

Ben recently said on his "The Ben and Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast" that he and Lauren realized during filming Happily Ever After? that they just weren't right for each other.

Ben insisted that while Happily Ever After? portrayed him as coming down with a case of cold feet before his wedding, he was actually just having doubts about whether he and Lauren were truly meant to be.

A source close to Lauren told E! News in May 2017 that Ben and Lauren just "wanted different things," and that Ben "would have kept wanting to make it work" and so their split was "really sad."

And Ben agreed on his "Almost Famous Podcast" it was "a very mutual" decision to part ways and end their engagement.

Ben said he now looks back fondly on "that season of life" and says he's glad they tried.

"I have no emotion wrapped around my past relationship with Lauren [now]," The Bachelor alum insisted. "You could not get me to cry [now]."

Lauren wed Chris in October 2019. Lauren and Chris now share two sons, Dutton and Baker.

"Personally, I hear her now say that maybe love feels differently for her than it did back on her time on the show. And I go, 'I'm glad! Like, you're married with kids. I'm married [too] and, like, yes, love does feel different,'" Ben confirmed.

"I'm glad you're in love with your husband more than you liked me -- or if you liked me at all, like, I'm just glad you like him! That's cool!"

But Ben confessed Lauren "should've gone home" and quit The Bachelor if she wasn't sure about him or serious about their relationship and future together.

"That show was really real for me... I invested, personally, a lot of effort into trying to figure out if it was the path that was going to help me find my partner or not," noted Ben, who also had a brief stint on The Bachelor Winter Games in 2018.

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)

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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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