We’ll be wearing a tight dark turtleneck in his honor tonight. On Monday evening’s Fantasy Suites episode of The Bachelorette, contestant Brendan Morais, a very cute and wholesome roofer from Massachusetts, decided to eliminate himself after being subjected to an afternoon date of engagement-ring shopping with the Neil Lane. Morais, who, like leading lady Tayshia Adams, went through a divorce prior to the show, initiated the breakup over dinner, stating that he unexpectedly found himself not ready to deepen a relationship so close to his divorce (as opposed to him being given the boot for, say, shaming the Bachelorette for having sex with another guy in a windmill). “When I came here, I thought I was ready, and I knew I was ready in my own mind, and I even expressed that to you, knowing you’re ready because you want something so bad,†he said. “I want a wife and kids and a family more than anything on the face of this earth. But then coming to the realization that there’s a big part of me that’s still broken. There’s a big part of me that still needs time to heal. There’s a big part of me that needs time to grow, because I still think there are pieces of myself that I need to pick up. All I want is to give you my whole heart, but as I sit here today, my heart isn’t whole.â€
“It really breaks my heart because you deserve a man who is complete,†Morais, altruism king, added. “You deserve a man who is healed from his past, and, unfortunately, right now, I’m not that man. I’m so sorry.†Adams, coming off spending two consecutive Fantasy Suites nights with fellow contestants Ivan Hall and Zac Clark, accepted his decision without any pushback. “Maybe a younger version of me would’ve been really pissed off at you,†she told him. “But I also know what you’ve gone through because we’ve both been married before.†Meanwhile, Adams has something else to worry about going into The Bachelorette’s Tuesday finale: Eliminated contestant Ben Smith, who departed the show last week due to his lack of “emotions†and “feelings†(her words, not ours), unexpectedly showed up prior to the rose ceremony to declare his love for Adams. She … has no idea what to do.