Dating after divorce. J.P. Rosenbaum got candid about life following his split from Ashley Hebert, including how he felt leading up to when the season 7 couple announced their separation.
“I’d say there was a little bit of anxiety,” the 45-year-old Michigan native began on the Tuesday, April 12, episode of Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast. “I mean, for us, it had been ongoing for longer than, obviously, people knew about. The post, the notification to the rest of the world — it was just a formality for us.”
Rosenbaum and Hebert, 37, announced their breakup in October 2020 after nearly eight years of marriage. Us broke the news in October 2021 that the former spouses, who share son Fordham, 7, and daughter Essex, 5, finalized their divorce. While Rosenbaum noted that there was “a little bit of chaos for a few weeks” when they made their split public, “nothing changed” between the now-exes.
“And then the story would be old. It would die down and, ‘OK, it’s another couple that kind of tanked and onto the next,’” he told Us. “It would be old news because there’s always a new season. There’s always a new couple. And so, you know, you’re no longer one of the happy success stories and it kind of just dies off. So maybe a little bit of anxiety, but I think we got what we expected out of the response.”
Rosenbaum added that “there was no major story” when it came to their split, explaining, “There wasn’t infidelity. And there weren’t any issues that triggered the announcement. … There was no drama associated with it.”
When asked whether he still considers the pair a Bachelor Nation success story, Rosenbaum replied, “I would totally agree with that. We were together, I mean, nine years, 10 years, whatever it was. And we will be in each other’s life forever. And we got two amazing, amazing children out of it. I wouldn’t change anything, obviously. We’re both in pretty good places.”
Hebert, for her part, has moved on with boyfriend Yanni Georgoulakis. “I haven’t met him, but I know of him and about him from her,” he told Us of the food blogger. “She’s living her life and if she’s happy that’s what matters.” Rosenbaum, meanwhile, is single.
“It’s weird. Dating in my mid-forties as a divorced father of two is just way different than dating, you know, single in my early thirties,” he told Us. “And especially now with all the apps and it’s strange, but I think you kind of get used to it. I would still prefer for it to happen organically and through a friend, but that’s not the world we live in right now. And I’m also not from Miami, so my network down here isn’t like what it was in New York. I have friends, but they’re mostly my age and married with kids. So it’s challenging and I have done the apps and I’ve been it out with some nice women and I’m dating, but I’m still trying to figure it out.”
Rosenbaum went on to note that he doesn’t have a “checklist” for The One.
“That, to me, is ridiculous ‘cause, you know, someone can check all the boxes and if it’s not there, it’s not there. … I know the feeling that I’m looking for,” he explained. “I know the connection that I’m looking for because I’ve had it. I know what it feels like. And I wanna feel that again. There’s the challenge of, ‘Does she have kids? Does she not have kids? Does she want kids? Do I want more kids?’ There’s that dynamic that you have to work through, but I do know the connection that I’m looking for. I do know the kind of communication that I’m looking for. I know it works and I think I know what doesn’t work, so I can tell pretty quickly if things are going to progress or they’re not going to progress just based upon, I guess, my experience.”
For more from Rosenbaum, including his connection to Bachelor Nation’s Zac Clark and his favorite memories from The Bachelorette, listen to Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast.