'Bachelor' Star Clayton Echard Gets Real About Relationship Regrets!

Clayton Echard has been deeply involved in his personal healing journey.

The former 'Bachelor' has long been candid in sharing his experience with mental health since leading "The Bachelor" last year. The conclusion to Echard's season of the reality TV series inspired quite a lot of controversy.

The 29-year-old's decision to jointly end his relationships with Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia at the same time, before pursuing his self-eliminated third-place contestant, Susie Evans, would result in an onslaught of criticism, causing Echard to fall into a deep depression.

Echard would share snippets of the hateful direct messages he received following the finale of his 'Bachelor' season at speaking engagements, and would eventually write a book focused on his mental health experience.

In order to completely heal, Echard would eventually get back in touch with Recchia; the duo's reunion inspired headlines in Bachelor Nation when the former couple starred in a number of TikToks posted by both Recchia and Michelle Young.

Recchia would later respond to fan speculation on their relationship, revealing she had been working on "healing and forgiveness" amid her reunion with Echard.

Now, Echard has revealed his side of the story. Read on to find out where the former Bachelor stands with his ex!

Earlier this month, The Blast shared deets about Recchia's Instagram story statement about her aforementioned reunion with Echard.

Without addressing the rumors directly, Recchia snapped a selfie while sitting in a car with the top down, writing, "u guys have me dedd it's all in good fun," before adding "healing and forgiveness is a lesson i had trouble learning for a long time."

The 26-year-old would later share the 'Bachelorette' title with Windey in the following season of "The Bachelorette." She would end her season in heartbreak after former fiancé Tino Franco admitted to cheating after their engagement.

Echard would take his heartbreak and channel it into writing a book. The Blast covered several details about his book, which is titled "180 Degrees: On Mental Health, Mindfulness, and Unlocking Self Belief." It was released last month.

The new author would also share more details on Instagram, writing, "I wrote '180 Degrees' partly for myself, as it was therapeutic to document my mental health journey from childhood up until now. It was long overdue for me to address the jumbled-up thoughts in my head and begin to untangle them little by little."

He continued, "I also created it in hopes of helping others find their own self-love, self-belief, confidence to open up and begin having conversations centered around mental health, and most importantly... a sense of peace that they are not alone..."

Echard's relationship with Recchia memorably ended with a tearful Recchia telling her ex that he would be "haunted" by his decision to split up with her.

If he did feel any 'haunting' feelings, they were seemingly taken care of after the duo's reunion, which he discussed during his appearance on Us Weekly's "Here For The Right Roses" podcast on Tuesday.

Echard described "There was so much healing there," when speaking about his relationship with Recchia. The duo had not spoken for an "entire year" before their recent reunion, according to the outlet.

"That conversation was so powerful," Echard continued to detail. "I walked away from that experience and I just remember thinking like, 'Man, this just felt so rewarding. And I'm just so happy to know even someone like her- after everything that happened- everyone that was mad at me, [but] nobody could be more mad at me than her or Gabby. And so for her to forgive me and tell me that, 'Hey, I understand, and I don't hold this against you any longer,' that was probably one of the best things I could have heard...," Echard went on to explain.

"They don't have any [reason] to forgive me, but if she can, then everything that I had done is forgivable," he continued, "And I can grow from this, and I can allow myself to forgive myself. If they forgive me specifically, I should be able to forgive myself. And so I did," he concluded.

There's no word whether Windey has forgiven Echard publicly. The "Dancing With The Stars" alumna got engaged at the end of her 'Bachelorette' experience to Erich Schwer, but the duo would later call off their engagement. Schwer recently announced he is in a new relationship.