The Bachelorette star Michelle Young has gushed about how she's falling more in love with Nayte Olukoya every day, and Nayte apparently believes their relationship is "forever."
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Michelle, a 28-year-old elementary school teacher from St. Louis Park, MN, selected Nayte, a 27-year-old Canadian sales executive who currently resides in Austin, TX, as her Season 18 winner over her self-proclaimed "devastated" runner-up Brandon Jones.
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Nayte proposed marriage at the Final Rose Ceremony that aired during Tuesday night's The Bachelorette finale broadcast, and the couple definitely still appears to be in the honeymoon stage two months after their engagement.
"I fall more in love every day," Michelle told People in a joint interview with her new fiance.
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"I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family with a healthy marriage and I thought, 'I'm not going to give up until I have that.' He's my person. And I didn't know I could love at this level."
Nayte shared how it's "so natural for us to be together," adding, "I've never felt the way I feel before. I'm all in!"
Michelle and Nayte agreed their incredibly strong connection sometimes surprises them.
"Every day, we'll just catch each other in just this, like, flow of emotion," Nayte said.
"It's just like, 'Holy crap, we are each other's. This is our life. This is actually forever.' We actually have a connection that is forever."
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Nayte boasted, "I think it's what everybody wants, everybody hopes for and everybody looks for, and it's kind of just like, 'Wow, it happened. This is happening right now.'"
Nayte revealed on The Bachelorette: After the Final Rose that he'll be moving to Minnesota in the next couple or few months and the pair have already been house-hunting.
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In fact, The Bachelor family gifted Michelle and Nayte a down payment on their first house together. (Michelle was caught whispering to Nayte that the check was for $200,000).
From the beginning, "Nayte and I always had an undeniable connection," Michelle explained.
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"I thought, 'I'm in trouble!' But even when I was falling in love, I wanted to make sure it wasn't infatuation."
And Nayte admittedly struggled to open up and be vulnerable throughout the season. Michelle even experienced moments where she doubted Nayte's intentions and feelings for her, and she feared she could end the process alone and brokenhearted.
"I suck at expressing myself," Nayte confessed with a laugh, explaining to People how he also felt very uncomfortable during group dates.
"It's an unnatural environment. But the best thing I could do was just focus on Michelle."
But Nayte told Michelle everything she needed to hear and more during their last date together on the show. Nayte assured the Bachelorette that he loved her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and couldn't even imagine her being ripped away from him.
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When it came to a proposal, "it was the best-case scenario, but it was also terrifying," Nayte recalled.
"I had a conversation with Michelle and I was like, 'I want you to know I'm scared.' But at the end of the day, I've never been so aligned with how I feel about somebody."
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Nayte said that when he closed his eyes and thought about his future with Michelle, he saw her next to him through life.
"So I was very confident and comfortable to get down on one knee. And I'm so glad she said yes!" he said.
Michelle, who was smiling ear to ear during their joint interview with People, gushed, "I've never met anybody even remotely close to [Nayte] because he just has so many layers."
"Like on a daily basis, I'm like, 'What did I do to deserve this? How did I get lucky?'" she said.
And now that Nayte and Michelle are dating in public -- but off-camera -- Nayte apparently has no problem saying what's on his mind and heart.
"He tells me how he feels about me every day -- multiple times," Michelle revealed.
"I do," Nayte agreed. "I do."
Michelle said she and her fiance have come a long way since deciding to get engaged in Mexico.
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"I think what a lot of people don't think about is re-watching this [season] back [on TV], right? Where you are so much more in love afterwards -- or we are, at least -- because you get to spend more time together and you get to learn all those things," Michelle told People.
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The real world always serves as a reality check for The Bachelor and The Bachelorette couples. Michelle realized she didn't even have Nayte's phone number once filming ended.
"You can have all these passionate moments but when you get into the real world, are you a person who's going to stick in and hold on and work through things?" Michelle said. "That's when I truly understood the depth of Nayte."
Nayte noted how "the show only lasts so long," adding, "Now it's done and we're just two people madly in love going down this road. And we're each other's rocks for life."
Michelle and Nayte are clearly excited about their future together and truly believe their romance is going to last and their love is going to endure.
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