Bachelor Clayton Says He Wasn't Gaslighting Susie During Breakup, Reveals What He Thought She Was Really Doing

It all went down during the Fantasy Suites episode the long-running reality show this past Tuesday. Clayton had decided that it was time to be honest about his feelings with all three of his remaining finalists -- only those feelings included him falling in love with all of them.

To make matters worse, Clayton made the decision to have sex during the first two Fantasy Suites with Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia. "[Sex] is such a critical part of a relationship," Clayton told E! News after the episode aired.

"I cannot get engaged to somebody if there's no sexual chemistry. It's just me," he continued. "Maybe that's not everybody else's. But for me, that's so incredible. If I'm going to get engaged, that has to be there."

Things went downhill fast after he told Susie that he was in love with her during the third and final Fantasy Suites date and she asked him point-blank if he'd said that to the other two women. She also asked if he'd slept with them.

Susie had been struggling the entire episode with the idea of Clayton being intimate with the other women. In a conversation with Gabby, though, Gabby shared with Susie that she wanted Clayton to fully explore these relationships so that she would know he was all in if and when he chose her.

It's just a difference of perspective, with Gabby clearly aligning more with Clayton's values about sex and intimacy than Susie's. And she's not the only one who has a little more lax view on sex and sexuality.

Things went south quickly, though, when Susie told him that him sleeping with the other two women was a dealbreaker for her. She didn't see how she could go on and get engaged after that.

The problem, as Clayton saw it, was that it was obviously too late at this point. He'd already had sex with the women. Susie insisted that she hadn't told him this because she didn't want to put an ultimatum on him. She just hoped that he would align with her wishes and not have sex.

While much of social media was turning against him, Clayton got some surprising support from one of the most prominent members of Bachelor Nation, Kaitlyn Bristowe. The "Bachelorette" co-host (and former Bachelorette) understood both of Clayton's situations.

"You genuinely fall in love with more [than one] person, so why would you not be intimate with more than one person when you're trying to find the person to spend the rest of your life with?" she mused to E! News.

She then went on to challenge all of Clayton's haters by asking, "Why do we judge so hard on this?"

And while many have argued that Clayton should have told Susie his intentions, Kaitlyn wants to know why Susie wasn't upfront with him. "These women should have had that conversation before the fantasy suite, like, 'Hey, this is either OK with me or it's not,'" she said. "If you've set those boundaries, then that's a much different story."

Things got ugly fast between Clayton and Susie, with him accusing her of a retroactive ultimatum that he'd already failed, and even saying that her wanting to walk away from the relationship at this point without even trying to work through it and talk through it negated everything they'd experienced up to that point.

That assertion was both ridiculous and totally unfair, as well as uncalled for. Many online accused him of gaslighting her in that moment, but Clayton insists that he looked up the word and that's absolutely not what was happening.

"I don't agree that I was gaslighting because I looked that up, and it said gaslighting, the definition is to try and convince someone of a different reality than what is actually the true reality of the situation," he said.

He argued that he can see why it might appear that way, but that's not what he was doing. He was trying to get her to take the time to talk through the reality of what did happen, that he'd already been extremely honest about it.

But, he also admitted that as the argument progressed, he began reacting emotionally to something he suddenly thought might be happening in that moment -- that probably wasn't.

It was clear from his ugly comments about her negating their entire relationship and how cold he was in walking her out that Clayton was angry and extremely emotional. It didn't help that Susie was saying on the one hand she couldn't see a way for her to stay at this point and on the other saying it was Clayton who was closing the door on her.

Regardless, neither of them were at their best in that moment and it was a scene Clayton knew was coming, and dreaded the inevitable backlash. "People are very much against me and favoring her," he told E!, "But I totally understand that. I totally get what I'm seeing."

What he was seeing in the moment, though, is something he says he no longer believes. It was just where his mind went trying to understand why the woman he saw as his likely winner -- even going so far as to tell her he loved her the most -- was suddenly done with him without even an interesting in taking through the issue and fighting for them.

"I started having these really dangerous thoughts of being like, 'What if Susie right now is just trying to get out of this?" he revealed. "What if she's just saying whatever she needs to say to leave me so that she can be the next Bachelorette?"

He said that by the next day, he no longer believed that was what was going on, but in the moment that's where his mind went and because of it, he lost control to the point he raised his voice and started shouting at her.

It wasn't a good look either way, but Susie's mind was made up. She'd basically told a producer that already, and was adamant with Clayton that she had no interesting in spending their Fantasy Suite time trying to talk it through. This was a point where she could not compromise.

That's absolutely her right as she has every right to stick by her values. But she didn't need to assert that he was forcing her out when she was very much going of her own accord. And he didn't need to yell at her for this conviction or tell her that it negated their entire relationship.

Could a conversation have happened sooner? Absolutely. He could have been more upfront about how he values sex and intimacy, making it clear that it's something he would need to explore as part of his process in narrowing these women down.

She could have made it clear that she needed him to abstain from sex with any of the other women if he thought she was the one he might end up proposing to. Neither value is inherently wrong, they're just different.

Unfortunately, teasers reveal that Clayton is going to continue to be honest about his intimacy and declarations of love with the two remaining women, and it looks like it's going to go over just about as well as it did with Susie. Things are going to get ugly -- er.

"The Bachelor" concludes next Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.