The Bachelor alum Clayton Echard has revealed the current status of his relationship with ex-girlfriend Susie Evans and whether he'd ever be open to appearing on Bachelor in Paradise.
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Clayton, who fell hard for Susie on The Bachelor's 26th season, recently conducted a Q&A session with his followers on Instagram, and a fan asked if he's still in contact with Susie following their split in late September.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
"This is the most asked question so far. Yes Susie and I still check in with each other from time to time. We're friends, things are great," Clayton revealed, according to BachelorNation.com.
"I love her and I love her family. I wish her nothing but the best. She is an incredible woman and is going to make someone extremely happy one day."
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Given Clayton is a single man again, he suggested he'd consider a future stint on Bachelor in Paradise.
"No, I'm not actively considering it right now. But later..." Clayton teased.
Clayton said instead of looking for love, he's been focusing on bettering himself and others.
"I'm currently chasing my passions of speaking on mental health nationally, impacting others through online personal training, and using my platform to share resources to help others with their struggles," shared the former football player and medical sales representative.
"All three of these possibilities wouldn't be possible without the platform I was given and I feel like I've found my purpose. So 'yes' is the answer!"
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Clayton said he is "happier" than he's ever been "in a long time," adding, "Life is good!"
On The Bachelor finale earlier this year, Susie was shown rejecting Clayton's final rose.
Susie and Clayton reconciled in the real world and fell in love, but they announced their decision to part ways and end their relationship in late September, with Clayton assuring fans that he and the wedding videographer still talked on occasion and were "on good terms."
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Susie recently created a blog titled "Susie Was Like," and in a blog post earlier this month, Susie revealed she and Clayton had broken up, in part, due to not being compatible.
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"I see comments still, like, 'Well, what happened?' And I'm like, 'Well, nothing happened! He didn't do anything; I didn't do anything. We just weren't really compatible,'" Susie reasoned.
"I think it was ultimately, like, expectations of what do you want in a partner? What do you want from yourself? And all of those kinds of things. And we just weren't really aligned on those things."
As for whether Susie would join the Bachelor in Paradise cast next summer, she told Us Weekly, "I really don't think so, unfortunately. I don't think it's [for me]. It just sounds like my nightmare, if I'm being honest."
The Bachelor fans began to suspect there was trouble in paradise between Clayton and Susie in August, when Clayton revealed on an episode of Amanda Hirsch's "Not Skinny But Not Fat" podcast that the couple had decided to stop living together and planned to move to different states.
Clayton -- who had moved to Virginia Beach to be with Susie after The Bachelor -- chose Scottsdale, AZ, as his new home, and Susie relocated to Los Angeles, CA.
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"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 admitted in a joint appearance with Susie on the "Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe" podcast in early October.
"I was like, 'We're just going to end this.' 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."
Clayton and Susie explained how they broke up because neither person felt stable or fully emotionally supported in the relationship due to their insecurities and outside pressure from Bachelor Nation to be a perfect couple.
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Clayton shared how it felt nearly impossible to pour into his relationship with Susie when he didn't even know what he wanted out of life and where his future was headed.
The couple also confirmed how dealing with backlash from Bachelor Nation -- including death threats sent to Clayton -- was a big factor in why they had issues and ultimately parted ways.
"I was trying to figure out what my next step was [and] I started questioning who I was because of all the negativity," Clayton said.
He added, "I started to believe some of what was being said about me. And I now look back at it and realize, like, I couldn't be that stable, secure man that I needed to be to really be able to give my all in a relationship."
Clayton said he felt the need to rehab his image and please others, all the while trying to get over death threats and handle problems in his relationship, such as wrongly being accused of cheating on Susie.
When Susie and Clayton announced their breakup in a September 23 statement, they wrote, "We stand in support of each other and hope to see the other go on to find happiness and healing. Although Claysie is no more, we hope that our communities can support us individually as we move forward with love and respect for each other."
And out of respect for each other, Susie and Clayton chose to keep some of their problems to themselves.
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"There are things private to us that we will probably never talk about... and I think that's healthy and protects our mental health and what we have struggled with... We want to respect each other's boundaries," Susie said on "Off the Vine."
But Clayton also teased there was a possibility he and Susie may get back together down the road.
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