Entertainment

Lesley's Post About Her Breakup With Dean Shows She’s SO Ready To Move On

by Marenah Dobin
ABC/Paul Hebert

It's officially official: another relationship that started on The Bachelor Winter Games is kaput. Lesley Murphy spoke out about breakup with Dean Unglert after it was reported by People on April 6. Lesley shared a photo of herself from the Bachelor Winter Games house in Vermont with a lengthy caption addressing her return to the Bachelor franchise, the breakup, and her outlook for the future.

Before Winter Games, Lesley appeared on Season 17 of The Bachelor where she made it to Sean Lowe's final five in 2013. She didn't appear on any other Bachelor spinoff shows and she focused her social media on her world travels instead of Bachelor-related content. After her Winter Games appearance, Lesley's typically travel-filled Instagram page was sprinkled with photos from her relationship with Dean and photos from her time with other Winter Games cast members.

That's why it makes sense that Lesley would start her breakup post by writing,

It’s a bit strange to feel the need to post about this, but I don’t think I can honestly resume my normal programming without giving you an explanation - and maybe that’s the wrong word, but I just wanted to thank y’all for the love and respect you’ve shown me over the past few days.

After the phrase "normal programming," Lesley included airplane, island, and tent emoji, indicating that she will get back to her usual travel posts after addressing the split.

Further along in the post, Lesley discussed what she is looking for in a partner. She explained, "I know it’s imperative to find someone who chooses us and acknowledges our many layers, who can be open and vulnerable, and most importantly, who is ready." Is Lesley alluding that Dean was not actually "ready" to meet her relationship standards?

Lesley wrote, "All we need is that same energy reciprocated, and despite how open and loving you attempt to be, people can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves. Don’t be afraid to be the one that loved the most and give everything you had, because you’ve got to find people who love like you do and who are ready."

With the second mention of wanting to be with someone who is "ready" to be with her, it is logical to conclude that she did't think Dean was "ready." There's no comment to any specific problems that lead to the breakup other than a possible lack of readiness and reciprocity.

Dean shared his own Instagram post dedicated to the breakup on April 7. He concluded his post with "Love takes work. Love is compromise. Love is earned. I still have a lot of work to do on myself, a lot to prove to myself, before I’m ready for something like that." Just like Lesley, he too, talked about the importance of being "ready" for love. He also emphasized that he still has "a lot of work to do" on himself.

There's no hint of anything specific leading to the breakup from Lesley and Dean themselves in either of those statements, but their relationship wasn't an easy one. While they were still together, Lesley spoke to People about the difficulties of their relationship. She confessed, "It hasn’t been easy, especially coming from the show where we lived together in a beautiful environment for a couple of weeks to basically being long distance and having to rely on FaceTime and text messages." She added, “Long distance is never easy.”

One person who did speculate on a specific reason for the split is The Bachelor Season 22 contestant Seinne Fleming who commented on an Instagram post from E! News about the breakup on April 6. Seinne wrote, "Shocker. Knew that wouldn't last when he slid into baby Bekah's DMs. #feelingpettytoday."

Bekah did seem to also say there were DMs on the March 26 episode of the Bachelor Party podcast. To be fair, Bekah didn't actually say much, but The Bachelor Season 22 contestant did answer some questions with affirmative sound effects. At the 8:36 mark of the episode, host Juliet Litman talked about her love of Dean and Lesley's relationship and Bekah made it clear that she did not see the romance lasting. Bekah then added, "I'll let my silence speak louder than words."

At the 9:50 mark, Bekah shared, "I haven't met him in person." In response, the host said, "You don't need to respond, but based on the information you just revealed, which is that you don't like Dean, you don't think highly of him, and you haven't met him, I'm assuming he slid into your DMs in a really creepy way." Once again, Bekah didn't actually utter any words, but she did confirm the suspicion by making beeping alarm sounds.

That said, neither Bekah nor Seinne said anything about when this supposed DM-ing happened, so if it did happen, it very well could have nothing to do with Dean and Lesley's split. (Bustle reached out to Dean for comment, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.)

Lesley concluded her post with some very clear optimism: "Out with the old, in with the true. It was a long winter, and I’m excited for a new season. Let the spring cleaning commence. I’m ready."

At this point, there's no official word on whether any DMs factored into the breakup, if Dean just wasn't "ready" to be in a relationship, or even if long distance was just too difficult to maintain. One thing that is clear is that Lesley is ready to move forward.