The Bachelorette may have made it seem like Peter Kraus’s reluctance to propose was the only thing standing in the way of his happy ending with Rachel Lindsay. According to Rachel, though, “deep-rooted issues” in their relationship ultimately led to their split. In separate press calls on Tuesday, Rachel and Peter had the chance to address what exactly those issues were.
As Rachel mentioned in the live portion of Monday night’s finale, for her, problems started to appear in Geneva. “With Peter it’s when I started to see some other deep-rooted issues that made me realize he’s not the type of man that I want as a husband,” Rachel told reporters. “I mean, I’ve been very open about that I want someone who knows who he is, knows what he wants and where he’s going. And the more I peeled back the layers with Peter, I realized that he wasn’t that person. And I think the proposal became such a focal point because that’s what happens at the end of the show, but that was not the reason that I decided not to choose Peter.”
Rachel elaborated when pressed about why she was frustrated with Peter although she wasn’t willing to tell him he was the one. “I think I was justified in being frustrated, because to get that far and still not know what you want to do was a complete contradiction to what he told me he would do,” she said. “In Geneva, we had a conversation, and he said that if he didn’t know, he would bow out, and he didn’t do that. And he continued to just give me enough to string me along but wasn’t really there to make that commitment—like, he didn’t know that he wanted to make that commitment. And I think to just focus it on that one line and that’s why he couldn’t do it is giving him an out.”
Peter, on the other hand, didn’t sense problems between him and Rachel in Geneva. “When she said that [during the finale], I was confused, and that hurt because that felt like she was reaching for certain things,” he said. “And it was something I couldn’t respond to—I didn’t know how to respond to. I couldn’t think of what she was talking about. And it was hurtful. I don’t think we have any deep-rooted issues. I think we literally were just on two different points of a path at that point, both heading in the same direction but at different rates.”
Peter maintains that nothing was missing in his relationship with Rachel, and he thinks that if he’d been ready to propose at the end of the show, Rachel would’ve accepted. “I felt throughout the entire process that I was the best with Rachel,” Peter said. “She and I’s connection was something very special from the very first date and unlike anything I’ve ever really experienced in my own life. And I felt like it was reciprocated, so I didn’t really concern myself with the other guys’ relationships as far as their inner workings, but I did feel like ours was a bit above the rest. And had I been ready at the end, I don’t think she would’ve gone a different direction.”
He obviously can’t go back in time and change what happened in Rioja. I just hope Peter finds a way to heal and move on from this heartbreak.