Ben Higgins had some tough goodbyes when he sent home Becca Tilley and Emily Ferguson in Indiana, but The Bachelor star admits letting a girl go after visiting her hometown was heart crushing.
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During Monday night's episode, Higgins and his six remaining bachelorettes spent time in his hometown of Warsaw, IN. He had a difficult time ousting Ferguson after she met his parents and then an even worse time eliminating Tilley at the Rose Ceremony when strong feelings had been developing.
"I know when you watch it at home you probably don't feel much sympathy for me -- and you shouldn't because this has been a wonderful opportunity for me -- but I really can't tell you how much I care about each one of these women. The idea of sending any of them home or hurting them at all literally keeps me up at night," Higgins wrote in his People blog.
"Not to mention the fact that the stakes are so high for me personally. I mean, these decisions are potentially about forever to me. Every decision I make I have to be sure of or I could be regretting it for the rest of my life. If that doesn't make you sweat I don't know what will."
But as difficult as all that was, Higgins teased the agony he felt following the women's hometown dates, which will be shown during next week's episode.
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"[Those moments] didn't prepare me for the goodbye I had to say next week after hometowns. There is no doubt in my mind that that is the hardest goodbye I said this entire time aside from the last one," the Bachelor confessed.
"But even before we get there, you are about to see a hometown week unlike anything you've ever seen before. And I can promise you I was far from ready for what was about to happen. There were definitely times where it was just as I hoped, and meeting these women's family was far beyond my expectations -- but what happens on one hometown in particular changed everything."
Higgins additionally warned Bachelor Nation "when protective families get involved, things get real really fast."
The Bachelor airs every Monday night from 8-10PM ET/PT on ABC.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski