Alex Nation on the real reason behind her break up with Richie Strahan.

The beginning of the relationship between Alex Nation and Richie Strahan can’t have been easy.

See, The Bachelor producers seemed bent on making the finale result a surprise, therefore hinting that Nikki Gogan was the favourite all along. When Alex was chosen, the commentary was sometimes harsh.

But surprisingly, the piercing public backlash thrown in Nation’s direction isn’t what the ex-reality television contestant sees as the cause of her break up with Strahan.

In fact, it was the distance between them, Nation told news.com.au in a recent interview.

At first, the distance separating the two was solely geographical, as the two lived in different states – Alex was from Victoria and Richie was a Perth local. But then, as time went on, they distanced emotionally too.

“We had internal as well as external pressures,” she said.

“Then we went quiet on social media because things went quiet in our relationship, and we had everyone speculating which put more pressure on us.

“The good thing about Richie and I is that we did communicate. But a relationship breakup is hard anyway.”

In December last year, Richie spoke to  New Idea about the breakdown of the relationship.

“The months leading up to it were the most difficult, crazy and confusing times I’ve been put through,” he told the tabloid. “Having something wonderful dissolve the way it did was heartbreaking, but at the same time, there was a lot of relief that the emotional roller-coaster was finally over.”

The Perth man said he made “a lot of sacrifices” in an effort to salvage it, but soon realised it was “destined to fail”.

“I guess the brightest spark can fizzle fast. We made some bad choices back in June and our relationship really struggled to recover for months after,” he said. “It didn’t matter how much effort I put into it.”

In November of last year, Nation announced her relationship with and subsequent engagement to a woman named Maegan Luxa. The two split as of April this year.