Rachel Recchia Wants to 'Move on with My Life' After Tino's Infidelity: 'I Still Believe in Love'

Mar. 15, 2025

Warning: This post contains spoilers from Tuesday’s finale ofThe Bachelorette.

Despite riding out of her proposal on a white horse,Rachel Recchia’s fairytale love story withTino Francocame to an endwhen she learned he cheated on her.

Rachel, 26,ended the engagement and facedTino for the first time since their split on Tuesday’s “After the Final Rose” special.

The Bachelorettestar tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue that she hopes she and Tino “can get to a point where we are at peace” but ultimately, she wants to “move on with my life.”

“I obviously still believe in love and I really know it’ll come along when it’s ready,” says Rachel, 32. “I am looking forward to this time to myself and to be able to reflect on everything and move forward.”

While Tino had hoped to be able to move forward with Rachel, the flight instructor knew she couldn’t continue a relationship with someone she didn’t trust.

“When I did sit down with him, I didn’t see much of him owning up to his actions or feeling sorry,” Rachel says. “I was still hitting lie after lie. And I just don’t know if I can continue a relationship when I don’t feel like there’s trust. I know that isn’t what I deserve.”

Craig Sjodin/instagram

Rachel started to sense something strange when Tino kept bringing up allegations against another season 19 cast member and concerns about leaked messages over the summer.

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The Florida resident admits she and Tino hit a “rough patch” and she asked for space. “But there was never ever a point in which we called off a relationship, called off an engagement or we weren’t committed to each other in my mind,” Rachel says.

Sami Drasin

Tino eventually owned up to cheating during that break, although Rachel thinks the infidelity actually carried on for longer than she knew. “I think, in my personal opinion, it was probably going on for longer,” she says. “I do believe that I don’t have the facts.”

“When I said yes, I was accepting forever. That meant that we were going to be navigating this together,” the reality star says. “We broke at the first crack in the glass, essentially. There really is no other way to look back at it, other than just hoping it’s something I can take and move forward.”

Craig Sjodin/ABC

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source: people.com