Former Bachelor Clayton Echard is struggling with his separation from girlfriend Susie Evans.
“It’s really hard because when we first broke up . . . my first initial feeling was, like, I felt abandoned; that was my first feeling,” Clayton says in an interview with People. “I was upset. I didn’t even want to look in her direction because I was like: If I look at you, the hurt is gonna tear me apart.”
For her part, Susie says, “He was very sassy, and I didn’t like it. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s how we’re gonna do it?’”
However, Clayton‘s resentment towards Susie didn’t last long.
“That lasted like half a day, and then I was like I can’t do this,” Clayton admits. “I can’t ignore her for this next week. I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. There’s so much love here. I want us to end on happy terms. So then I apologized, and I was like, ‘Hey, I want us to be happy,’ and then we were happy for a few days.”
Both Susie and Clayton admitted to wondering if they made the right decision to end their relationship.
“We were crying non-stop,” Clayton says. “We were like, ‘Wait, we’re having so much fun now, should we not break up?’”
After finally deciding to separate, Susie reached back out to Clayton. However, the final outcome of their relationship still seems to be up in the air.
“Can Susie and I find a way to still keep in contact but not hold onto this feeling of: Can this work? Because what happens if it doesn’t?” Clayton says. “I don’t want to be crushed and hold onto hope. And then all of a sudden, no this isn’t going to work . . . then it just destroys you a second time.”
Last week, Susie posted a video on TikTok that joked about feeling better — all with the help of some generic self-care — after their breakup.
“Me to every self-care ritual I’ve picked up this week,” Susie wrote on the video. “You better fix my entire life, you little s—.”
In the clip, she’s seen wearing a face mask and speaking to an empty journal.
A second video Susie uploaded sees the Bachelor alum lip-syncing to a sound that says, “No more questions, I’m a little mad, and I’m tired.” She captioned the video, “How I’m handling this week.”
Sounds like Clayton‘s not the only one who’s struggling with his emotions following the split.
Clayton and Susie announced their breakup last month. “With incredibly heavy hearts, we wanted to share that we have decided to go our separate ways. For anyone who has ever loved, knows this was a painful decision to make and not one taken lightly,” they wrote on a joint Instagram post.
“We understand that there will likely be a lot of questions about this decision — social media is definitely a highlight reel and much of our experiences together we have kept private as I’m sure most can understand. But we will share this — although this last year together has brought us so much joy and so many laughs, there has also been a significant amount of pain.”
The couple first met on Season 26 of The Bachelor, when Susie was a competitor for Clayton‘s heart. Susie made it to the final three contestants, but decide to leave when she found out that Clayton had been “intimate” with the other two remaining women in the Fantasy Suite — something she said would be a “deal breaker” for her. Unfortunately, failed to inform Clayton of that information until after his overnight dates with Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia. But by then it was too late.
Clayton and Susie reunited when she slid into his DMs, following the end of filming, and they publicly announced their couplehood at the show’s finale. Afterwards, Clayton quit his job and moved to Susie’s home state of Virginia, where they cohabited for about six months.
In August, Clayton and Susie announced they’d be moving separately to different states and trying a long-distance relationship. “We’re like, ‘We don’t know if it’s going to be a month-long [relationship] from here or if it’s gonna be lifetime but, like, there’s no pressure,” Clayton said at the time. “Let’s just love each other and be thankful.”
Well, like my mom used to say, if it’s meant to be, they’ll find their way back to each other. But if it’s not, hopefully they’ll both find a better match and be happy again. Breakups are hard. I wish them well.
TELL US- DO YOU THINK CLAYTON AND SUSIE ARE REALLY OVER THIS TIME? DO YOU THINK THEY’LL GET BACK TOGETHER?
[Photo Credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin]