The Bachelor alum Ben Higgins has shared how he's getting through "difficult times" following a "breakdown" that resulted in him returning to his Indiana hometown and doing some soul-searching.
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"Taking some time to focus on captaining the pontoon," Ben captioned a photo of himself steering a boat on Winona Lake in Indiana.
"The lake may get wavy, the bends may be unknown, but trust me friends the most difficult times teach us the most. Let's keep riding."
Ben's fiancee, Jessica Clarke, noticeably commented on the photo, "You're a good captain," which seemingly suggests their relationship is still in good standing.
Ben, who starred on The Bachelor's 20th season in 2016, opened up about his latest struggle as a former -- and essentially washed-up, for lack of a better term -- reality star during Tuesday's episode of Season 1 The Bachelorette star Trista Rehn's Better Etc. podcast.
"I am back in Indiana right now because of a breakdown, again, in my life where I don't know what's happening," Ben admitted, according to Us Weekly.
"I don't know what this next season of life looks like for me. I'm farther and farther removed from the show, and at the same time, I need to figure out what my life is going to look like and what my legacy is going to be."
Ben reportedly acknowledged the next chapter of his life is "really exciting," mainly because he's set to marry Jessica in November 2021, but walking into the unknown is "also really hard."
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"I'm at a low place, I don't see myself as this thriving figure right now. I'm kind of lamenting and separating myself from a lot of things that I held close," Ben explained.
After competing for Kaitlyn Bristowe's heart on The Bachelorette's eleventh season, Ben starred on The Bachelor and proposed marriage to his winner, Lauren Bushnell, during the Season 20 finale that aired in March 2016.
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Once Ben's The Bachelor season wrapped, he and Lauren starred on a Bachelor spinoff called Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After? on Freeform. The pair, however, split not long after in May 2017.
Ben said being in the public eye and becoming famous was quite an adjustment for him to make.
"All of a sudden I go from feeling like I'm an outsider to, over a period of time, having enough people tell me that I'm awesome to start feeling pretty good about [myself]," Ben shared.
"I start building an identity around that. I started to really feel like, 'Oh, my gosh, this is the thing that I was needing to fill me... I'll be in the in-group forever.'"
But Ben admitted his "infatuation" with fame "started to fade" and his constant "reach" to remain relevant ultimately cost him a lot, according to Us.
Ben confessed that he had "lost" himself, adding, "I was living not just for other people, but just for other people's attention."
Following his breakup with Lauren, Ben also appeared on The Bachelor: Winter Games, which aired on ABC in 2018.
Ben didn't appear to have a serious relationship until he met Jess, with whom he went Instagram official in January 2019.
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Ben and Jess got engaged in March 2020 and then purchased their first home together in Denver, CO, where Ben has been living for years, in December.
Ben and Jess initially planned to wed in 2020 but pushed back their nuptials to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Ben revealed that right before COVID-19 started to spread in early 2020, he had begun to "divorce [himself]" from trying to seek admiration and the approval of others.
"It was, selfishly, one of the most unhealthy and best times for me," Ben recalled of the pandemic. "I saw everybody else around me slow down... What I recognized then is [that] I was measuring myself on everybody else still, more than I knew."
As far as his personal goals for the future go, 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.
But Ben has clarified he and Jessica -- who has agreed to abstain from sex until marriage to ensure their first encounter will be special -- won't be living together in their new place until after the wedding.
Ever since they began dating in 2018, Ben and Jessica have been making a long-distance relationship work, with Ben being in Denver most of the time and Jessica living in Nashville, TN, where she attends esthetics school.
The couple's relationship began in December 2018 when Ben apparently saw Jess' photo from a hockey game she went to with her father and decided to direct message her on Instagram. After chatting on FaceTime, the pair met in person and Ben asked Jess to be his girlfriend.
For Lauren's part, the Season 20 The Bachelor alum is married with one child to country singer Chris Lane.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
