Ashley I. & Kevin Just Explained — Together — Why They Split After ‘Bachelor Winter Games'

Earlier this week, Bachelor fans were surprised to find out that the winners of the Bachelor Winter Games had decided to go their separate ways, but now, it all makes sense. Ashley Iaconetti and Kevin Wendt explained why they broke up on her podcast, Almost Famous, and now that they've shared the reason behind their split, it actually sounds like it's better that they ended things sooner rather than later.

After seeing them hit it off on the show in February and all of the sweet Instagram posts that followed as they've gotten to know each other over the past few months (the show filmed in December), it was pretty shocking to hear that they'd decided to call it quits. From the beginning, they were facing some pretty big obstacles; the distance between Los Angeles and Ontario is no small thing to overcome. But as it turns out, the reason Wendt and Iaconetti broke up has nothing to do with trying to make things work while they live in two different countries.

As Iaconetti told it, their relationship was missing that undefinable "spark" factor that makes relationships work, and because of that, she knew she had to say goodbye. There was no major blowout between these two — she just wasn't feeling it.

“It sounds a little harsh, but it’s just that lack of — there’s magic," she said on her podcast (which you can listen to here), according to E!. "We get along very well, it’s just there’s a little something missing and you can’t really pinpoint what it is. That’s just how I feel."

That's fair enough, even if it's a bummer to hear for fans who have been rooting for these two since the beginning. And if you're a little confused that there's no magic in their relationship when they seemed to have a lot of chemistry on Winter Games, Wendt explained what happened there pretty well. In Vermont, they were cut off from the outside world, and in that kind of environment, things worked a lot better.

"I feel like you get those connections all the time where if you take away our outside world and just put Ashley and me on an island together, we’d probably get along really well," he said. "And that’s what Vermont was.”

But even though Iaconetti wasn't feeling the magic once their relationship was brought into the real world, it sounds like Wendt wasn't 100 percent ready to end things. He said:

"I’m very hard at giving up on things. And I’m not saying that we gave up on it … I’m saying I was still ready to come there again. And I know her birthday, I wanted to be there when I had to work and I was planning on coming out as of that week or she was going to come here. I knew we definitely had an uphill battle. I wasn’t 100 percent in yet, but I also knew I wanted to see her again. But now that a few days have passed and we both kind of collected our thoughts and emotions and stuff, I know she made the right call and I know this is the way it should be.”

Poor Kevin. Breakups are really hard, especially when one person is more ready for it to end than the other, but it does sound like they're in a pretty good place as friends even though they're no longer dating.

Wendt also added that even though sometimes he thinks Iaconetti broke things off before a spark had the chance to happen between them, he understands why it's better to end things early. It truly does seems like it was for the best; a breakup a few months from now would have been even more heartbreaking. Besides, shouldn't they both be free to find someone who they do have that spark with?

It was really exciting to see Iaconetti finally get that Bachelor franchise happily ever after we've seen her search for over the last few years, but if this wasn't it, good for her for not settling. She and Wendt are sure to find the right people now that they've cut each other loose — and in the meantime, it seems like they've found a real friend in each other. Not the worst outcome a breakup can have, is it?