Love Is Blind Season 8's Lauren Spills What The Ultimate Factor Was That Led To Her Split From Dave

The eighth season of Love is Blind introduced audiences to a fresh group of singles looking for love. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Love is Blind saw five couples get engaged and head to Honduras for a vacation together. Among the newly engaged pairs were David "Dave" Bettenburg and Lauren O'Brien.

Dave and Lauren had some ups and downs during their time in paradise, and when they returned home, it became clear they still had some work to do. Dave's insecurities about Lauren's past came up repeatedly, while his constant uncertainty about their pending nuptials ultimately pushed Lauren too far. By the end of Episode 11, they agreed to go their separate ways.

Since their split, Lauren has talked about what happened between her and her former fiancé, Dave. Dave, for his part, has offered his thoughts, too. Here's what happened and what they had to say about it.

Dave And Lauren Hit It Off In The Love Is Blind Pods, But He Struggled With Getting To Know More About Her

Dave Bettenberg and Lauren O'Brien didn't have an easy go of it in the pods due to his indecisiveness. After ultimately choosing Lauren over Molly Mullaney, Dave proposed to Lauren, and the alter-bound duo headed to Honduras.

When Dave and Lauren were on their romantic vacation, Dave discovered that his fiancé had dated a man right before going on the show. Her former flame wasn't a stranger, but it was someone that Dave knew through mutual friends. Dave was outwardly skeptical of Lauren's dedication to their relationship because he didn't understand how she could go from dating someone else to marrying him.

Dave's insecurities about his dating history and their lack of a physical relationship are a dark cloud over their relationship. One more factor was the value he placed on his sister's opinion of Lauren because she's been influential in his romantic life.

Dave and Lauren's entrance into cohabitation seemed to go well, but rumors about the man Lauren dated continued to arise. Despite Lauren's assurances that she never considered the man to be anything more than "a friend with benefits," Dave remained fixated on it. Dave explained what he was hearing from the people in his life about the man when he spoke to People:

"This is coming from not only my sister, who knows this guy's best friend but also, my really close college friends that know him [and] were all telling me that they had been dating for three months, she was staying at his place the week before she left."

Family Matters And Friend Groups Factored Into The Breakup Between Lauren O'Brien And David Bettenberg

After a night out with friends, Dave decided he was going to sleep in his apartment. He texted Lauren to tell her as much. She explained during a confessional that she was frustrated with her fiancé because he repeatedly questioned her readiness to marry him, but he was the one who wasn't working on their relationship.

Lauren and Dave talked the next day, but that wasn't the end of the drama. Dave indicated he didn't want his family to meet "just anyone" and that it would be a waste of time for his sister to get to know Lauren if marriage wasn't in the cards.

Lauren's dad met with Dave but didn't want to be seen on camera. This was another mark against Lauren in Dave's opinion because it indicated she was not serious about marriage. Lauren countered that it wasn't her family's fault because "your sister didn't want you to get engaged. Your dad didn't even know that there was an engagement."

Dave later explained why he was not willing to introduce Lauren to his family:

"I'm not going to force my best friends and family members to come watch me say no at the altar when I knew that was going to be my answer based off of the information I had at that time."

Lauren Reflected And Identified When She Knew Her Relationship With Dave Was Over On Love Is Blind

Dave and Lauren ended their relationship in episode 11, but she later talked about how she got to that point. Upon their return from Honduras, Dave seemed different when he got his phone back. While she was excitedly telling her friends and family about her engagement, he was in a group chat that, in her words, told him "you just got engaged to someone with a boyfriend."

Accusations continued to fly and, again in Lauren's words,

"He kept kind of referencing this idea that because I had this sexual relationship with someone beforehand, that translates to me not being ready for marriage. I just didn’t understand how those two things equated and how that in any way was a reflection on my character or my maturity or my readiness for marriage."

Dave talked about ending things, then seemed to hedge and try to rekindle things with Lauren. After all of this, Lauren identified exactly when she knew she was done with Dave:

"I think that that conversation in the movie theater is my breaking point... You see him shift his tone a little bit and get angry with me and I'm like, this is not how my person will speak to me. We're done. It was the nail in the coffin for how emotionally drained I was.... And then that's the way he was approaching me and my family. It's like, I can't. I've over-explained the s**t out of this situation. And nothing I say or do will make you look at it differently until you hear it from your friends."

Lauren told Glamour that she would do Love is Blind "again in a heartbeat" because of the other relationships she developed on the show. She made connections with the other girls that, in the end, made the whole thing worth it.