Rachel Lindsay is peeling back the curtain on her marriage to Bryan Abasolo.
On a recent episode of The View, the former Bachelorette star joined Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin to discuss the challenges of public relationships.
When the topic of Nikki Garcia and Artem Chigvintsev’s divorce came up, Linday said she could relate to what the WWE star was going through.
“I know this all too well right now,” Lindsay began, referencing her ongoing divorce from Abasolo, which he filed for in January. “For those of you who don’t know, I met my ex on The Bachelor. We’re currently going through a divorce, and it’s really interesting.”
“We met, we dated for two and a half years, we went and got married. And we were looked at as one of the more successful relationships that came from the show. Anywhere I went, people would ask me about my relationship….” Lindsay continued.
“And you feel the public pressure to always let people know that things are great, even though behind closed doors, that might not be the case — or you’re working on it, or you’re having a bad day or whatever it might be.”
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Reflecting on the weight of her experience, she admitted:
“A lot of that is wrapped up in shame. You don’t want to say that it fell. You’re scared; you don’t want people to see you in a different way.”
When guest host Abby Huntsman and Whoopi Goldberg asked Lindsay when she started having doubts about her marriage, the reality TV star didn’t hold back in her response.
“It’s even hard to admit it publicly now. I would say that probably I saw signs before the marriage, but as women, we’re fixers and we think that we can figure it out,” she said. “They’re a challenge to us! But eventually, I saw it more. I would say within two years, and we were married for four and a half.”
After opening up about how she dealt with her own doubts and societal pressures, Lindsay shared some empowering advice.
“Your identity becomes wrapped up in the relationship and you’re afraid that’s the only way people see you. But I’m here to tell you, it’s not. You can take your power back; you can find your power within. No one has to dim their light.”
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Lindsay and Abasolo got engaged on season 13 of The Bachelorette and were married for four years before the Bachelorette-winner-husband filed for divorce in January.
In an August episode of Getting Grilled with Curtis Stone, the 39-year-old opened up about feeling “scared” and “weirded out” during the proposal.
“I can’t say exciting was the word. I was scared. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, now I have to tell my parents that I got engaged,’ because when I left to go do The Bachelor, I was like, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to fall for any of these men,’ and I did, so I was so terrified to tell them,” she recalled.
“And then I just kept looking at the ring, and he was excited, and I just was like, I think I was very quiet on the way home. I just – I was weirded out.”
Abasolo, for his part, said that they had been “going to marriage counseling” and that he was “sleeping in a different bedroom” before ultimately filing for divorce.
“We didn’t spend enough time with each other,” he admitted during an interview with his divorce coach Rene Garcia.
In a July divorce filing, the chiropractor further alleged that Lindsay wanted him “out of the way” and uninvolved in her Hollywood endeavors. He described feeling “stuck at home and stuck at work with a wife who never wanted to be around me.”
