Rachael Kirkconnell Reveals Empowering Lessons Learned from Matt James Breakup

Rachael Kirkconnell parted ways from Matt James, but gained valuable wisdom and a sense of personal strength in the process.

Two months after she and the Bachelor alum broke up, the 28-year-old reflected on the lessons she learned from their four-year relationship that could be applied to a future romance.

“I think that from things that I would take away, would just be standing up for myself a bit more,” Rachael told TopMob News in an exclusive interview, “and just not losing your confidence or not putting yourself aside for someone else.”

“I think it’s really easy to get lost on putting yourself first at times or making sure that you’re being seen and heard,” she continued. “Of course, you’re wanting to show others how much you love them and care for them, but you can’t forget about yourself.”

Even though Rachel is still dealing with the fallout from her four-year relationship with Matt ending, which she acknowledged in January, she’s not avoiding recalling the positive moments they shared together.

Rachael Kirkconnell parted ways from Matt James, but gained wisdom and strength in the process.

Two months after she and the Bachelor alum broke up, the 28-year-old reflected on the lessons she learned from their four-year relationship that could be applied to a future romance.

Even though Rachel is currently dealing with the fallout following the conclusion of her four-year relationship with Matt, which she confirmed in January, she’s not avoiding reminiscing about the positive moments they shared together.

“I am still processing everything, figuring it out,” she said. “I think a lot of people think that I have feelings of remorse or regret or frustration or that I’m just very, very heartbroken. I think that I have to remind myself that there was no time wasted and that I’m very thankful for everything that I went through, for what we both went through.”

These days, Rachael’s love life is on the backburner—concentrating on herself and her business endeavors, such as her new collab with fashion retailer Showpo—she does have an idea of what she’s looking for in a future partner when she is ready to get back in the dating game.

“I guess I would just say someone who’s just very considerate and is very respectful to me,” she noted, “and is uplifting me the way that I should be uplifting myself. So just someone who’s very supportive.”

Rachael continued, “I think that I’m open to a lot of different things and I’m not looking for someone specific, I have no idea what that person looks like, but when the day comes, I’m excited. But not ready yet. I’m still figuring it all out.”

Read on for more of Rachael’s biggest bombshells about her and Matt’s breakup…

Before they abruptly broke up after four years of dating, Rachael Kirkconnell says she and her now-ex Matt James discussed getting engaged, as well as plans to start a family in the future, during her Jan. 28 interview on Call Her Daddy.

“We talked about rings,” she said. “He told me a few months ago to start, you know, saving some things, picking things out or that we should go look at some—and that was a big deal, I would say, for him to say. That’s when I was like, ‘Wow, okay. He really is on board with this.’ That was such a green flag to me and I felt like the longer we were together, the more he was able to talk about it and I think at first, I could tell it was something that did scare him a lot or it was like a really hard thing for him to talk about and it just seemed easier and easier as our relationship went on, so I felt like that was a good sign.”

During their trip to Tokyo, as Rachael explained, the couple got into small arguments stemming from Rachael feeling “overwhelmed” over choosing places for them to eat and for Matt to film his content. Those disagreements then snowballed into the bigger issues that were between them.

“We had gotten into an argument right then and there, like walking in the street, we skipped lunch, we went back to the hotel and just ended up having a bigger conversation,” the 28-year-old explained. “We were just a little irritated with one another. But then it was like, okay, now that we’re back here again where you’re annoyed with me, I’m annoyed with you. I feel like you’re in the wrong. You feel like I’m in the wrong. He really just kind of let out everything that I guess he had been feeling for a while. I don’t know.”

Rachael mentioned that Matt expressed concerns about certain traits of hers that he felt might be problematic in a spouse, as he put it, by the close of the day.

“Like at the end of the day, there are things that we aren’t compatible with,” she recalled. “It was just one of those things where he I think just had this realization that I should want to propose to you by this time. Like at this point in our relationship, ‘I should be wanting those things and I should be ready for that. But I’m not still, I still don’t feel like we’re ready or I don’t feel like I’m ready. I don’t know if I ever see myself proposing to you. I can’t actually see myself married to you.’”

He expressed, ‘Perhaps someday he might arrive, but he doesn’t feel prepared at the moment.’ I responded, ‘To be honest, I think that if you haven’t felt ready after four years, it could be a concern. If that’s the case, it might suggest we shouldn’t continue our relationship because you know me better than anyone else does.’

As the Bachelor Nation star explained, as she boarded a plane to jet out of Tokyo, that’s when she was alerted that their split had now become public, thanks to Matt’s Instagram post announcing their split—and that she was then unable to access Wi-Fi for another 12 hours.

“We’re literally getting ready to take off and my phone blows up,” she noted. “It’s one of my best friends and it says, ‘Rach,’ with a bunch of question marks, and as soon as I saw that, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, how does she know,’ and then she texts me again and said, ‘I saw Matt’s post. Is this real life?’ And that’s how I found out that he posted. So then, literally the plane is taking off and I see his post, and that’s it. I don’t have any service or anything for the next twelve hours.”

“So, I’m freaking out because, you know, just got broken up with and now, a few hours later, it’s for the whole world to see and I’m still trying to process it,” she continued. “I’m still in total shock, so then knowing like the whole world is seeing this. I’m like, ‘This is so crazy. I can’t even wrap my mind around this right now.’”

Noting that she still “would love to know” the exact reason behind Matt’s social media post, Rachael noted the move “really finally just put a nail in the coffin.”

She told me that she has talked to him after the incident and she is certain that he now realizes it was a mistake.

“I don’t think I can ‘cause I think when someone says those things that he said, you know, ‘I don’t think you’re my person. I don’t see us getting married,’ I think that’s when you have to call it quits,” she explained on Call Her Daddy. “Just the way that he handled all of this and this post and everything. I forgive him, but I just don’t think I can be with someone that—I felt like he disrespected me at the end of the day doing that.”

She added, “It’s just one of those things where you have to stand up for yourself even if you don’t want to. Of course, there’s part of me that [wishes] we could just get back together and pretend that this never happened, but that’s not the case and I think as hard as it is, I think the right decision is to stand up for myself and be on my own.”

2025-03-16 19:21

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