When you know, you know. Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon were in no rush to say “I love you” when they started dating.
The Bachelor in Paradise alums met three years ago on the show and have been friends ever since, but recently decided to give a serious relationship a try. They told Entertainment Tonight that they wanted to make sure their romance was solid before openly declaring their love for one another.
Haibon revealed that while he referred to Iaconetti, 30, as “the love of my life” prior to saying the three special words, the couple took six weeks into their relationship to say “I love you.”
“He would even say ‘love of my life’ before he said ‘I’m in love with you,'” she told the outlet in a story posted on Saturday, June 2.
“I wanted to make sure,” Haibon, 29, said. “I wanted us to date for a little while before we said those words to make sure this was real. And I wanted it to be important. We were in bed, we were lying there. I couldn’t wait anymore! We were talking throughout that entire weekend about how much we liked each other, and I was like, ‘I don’t like you, I love you!”
He added: “I was super nervous to say it. I was like, ‘I hope she says it back.’ I said, ‘I’m completely obsessed with you, I’m addicted to you.'”
“For me, it was really just love at first sight,” she said. “I don’t know when in the past couple months did I decide [I wanted to be with him]. I always knew we had something I’d never experienced before. We’re similar and different in the most compatible ways. We really complement each other.”
“We knew that there was a lot of backstory and history with us and we really wanted to date and just have a relaxed, easygoing relationship because we’ve never been boyfriend/girlfriend throughout our entire relationship,” Haibon added.
After keeping their relationship under wraps for a few months, the pair revealed in May on her web series The Story of Us that they were dating. Since then, they have been gushing about each other on social media and sharing photos from their lives together, including their pics from their tropical getaway in Hawaii.
