Few couples within Bachelor Nation are more deserving of delivering a big fat we told you so than Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Lauren Burnham Luyendyk.
When then-Bachelor Arie split with final rose recipient and fiancée Becca Kufrin in a breakup agonizingly captured by cameras to take another stab at things with runner-up Lauren (known commonly in Bachelor parlance as "pulling a Mesnick", thanks to Jason Mesnick's After the Final Rose switch from Melissa Rycroft to now-wife Molly Mesnick), viewers began placing bets on the longevity of their romance. (Kelly Ripa, for instance, set the over/under at 100 days.)
But five years of marriage and three kids later they've surpassed every last one of those snarky predictions and the average length of a Bachelor Nation romance.
And yet they don't spend all that much time pondering the fact that they're one of few franchise success stories. As Lauren put it to E! News, "We don't really care." Echoed Arie, "We're grateful for the experience. We'll always be grateful."
Because while their 2018 finale actually lived up to its most dramatic ever billing, "The fact is, I'm really happy with Lauren," Arie, 42, explained in a GQ interview published two months after he was put through the reality TV wringer. "So for me, it was all worth it."
And ultimately his biggest crime, as he explained in the profile that dubbed him "The Most Hated Bachelor in America", was having some indecision about agreeing to forever with someone he'd only enjoyed a handful of outings with.
The day after his final date with Becca, who unlike the more camera-shy Lauren, now 32, "was so herself, on and off camera," he described to GQ, "Production woke me up at seven in the morning, and they were like, 'Okay, who is it?'"
He was conflicted, but The Bachelor production schedule waits for no indecisive man and so when it came time to slide that 3-carat sparkler on one woman's hand he chose Becca.
"I felt like I was trying to be logical," he explained. "I tried to think like, 'Okay, I know who Becca is, and she's a great person. In the moment, I felt like I was making the right choice."
Looking back, "It's not natural to have two people that you [have], at the end, and then have to break up with one person and get engaged to another person an hour later," he shared during a 2020 appearance on Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew. "It's just so weird. It's, like, no wonder it barely works."
Because as much as he liked Becca, he couldn't shake the reminders of what he'd given up, finding himself thinking about Lauren's sweet personality and their shared goofy sense of humor.
So with his fiancée's permission, he reached out to Lauren in the waning hours of 2017, sliding into her DMs on New Year's Eve and setting up a time to chat the next day. "As soon as I heard her voice," he recalled, "I knew that I had to end things with Becca."
In the made-for-TV recap it seemed like Lauren was immediately forgiving, eagerly taking back the man who had dumped her without a single worry. And she admits she was excited to see him.
Still, she clarified to The Hollywood Reporter a day after their After the Final Rose appearance, "Obviously I had my reservations and I needed an explanation behind it and reassurance of that, but I think we've gotten through that and are in a really good place."
Quite simply, she had to believe he was there for the right reasons.
"I still felt strongly about him, so, you know, if you're going to move past something in life together, you just have to trust each other," she would later explain on Shawn Johnson and husband Andrew East's podcast. "At that point, we kind of felt like it was us against the world. So it brought us close together and we realized we were the only people we could only lean on in that situation. That helped us trust each other a lot faster."
Leaving their controversial ATFR with a Neil Lane sparkler on her left hand, the pair ditched the naysayers by embarking on a seemingly endless vacation that saw them traipsing around Iceland, Spain, Australia and Hong Kong.
When they finally touched down in the States, they viewed some 70 potential homes near his condo in Scottsdale, Ariz. before putting an offer down on a $870,000 four-bedroom with high, vaulted ceilings and the walk-in closet of Lauren's dreams. "As soon as we walked in," Arie declared, "we knew this was our home."
The farmhouse style spread was the kind of place they could grow into, they hinted to Us Weekly, weeks before revealing they were already well on their way.
"I kind of had a feeling that I might be pregnant," Lauren told the magazine of learning she was expecting in the fall of 2018. "So my friend insisted on bringing a pregnancy test over." Giving her man the honor of reading the results, "Arie came out with the test in his hand and tears in his eyes. He was like, 'You're pregnant!'"
Just to be really sure, they rushed to the store for extra tests, each of the six they chose returning with the same result. "We weren't trying," he admitted, "but we are so excited. It's going to be a whole new chapter in our lives."
An anthology, really.
Four months after Bachelor host Chris Harrison presided over their 100-person January 2019 vows at Hawaii's historic Haiku Mill ("Everything that I imagined, it was that and 10 times better," she told Us Weekly of the nuptials"), daughter Alessi joined the party that May.
And though Lauren suffered a miscarriage a year later, the pair were soon raising a glass to happier news, learning Lauren was expecting a boy and a girl.
"This time around has been different to say the least," she shared in an emotional 2021 Instagram post. "The darkness that surrounds a loss is something not easily forgotten. The months of mourning, the months of hoping, to now, moments of worry."
Still, she acknowledged, "i'm proud of this body and what we've endured together. i'm proud of my second & third babies for growing so well and grateful for all the reminders they send me saying, 'mom, we're okay'. i'm proud of my journey through the darkness, because without that, the light i see now wouldn't shine quite so bright."
What followed was more darkness—of the literal variety—with the pair powering through the newborn days after son Lux and daughter Senna's arrival in June 2021 by switching off overnight responsibilities.
"I'll sleep in the twins' room, I'll take a night, then Lauren will sleep in the twins' room the next night," he explained in a YouTube video that August. "Just to give each other a full night's rest. Then the person who has a full night's rest handles Alessi first thing in the morning. It's working out pretty good."
Because, as it turns out, the two were rather adept partners.
"If I'm having a mental breakdown, Lauren picks up the slack," Arie expressed. "If she's having a mental breakdown, I get it together and I pick up the slack. I think that is what makes us great at—I'm tooting my own horn now—co-parenting."
Their other major secret, they shared in an interview with E! News last March, is to never stop enjoying those one-on-ones.
"We always make time for each other and we go on dates," Lauren shared, the two even launching DUO, a dating app designed to provide couples with night-out inspiration.
Agreed Arie, "We prioritize each other, over work, and even over spending time with the babies, because it's important to have a strong bond and communication. It's the biggest thing for us. We're going to talk about everything."
As in, everything.
A psych major when she studied at Virginia's Old Dominion University, "I always think it's best to just discuss your feelings right away instead of letting them fester," Lauren explained. "So I always do that myself and I encourage Arie to do that as well."
And the race car driver turned real estate agent is more than happy to stay in her lane. "She's very good at communicating, and getting me to do things," he acknowledged. "I'm very agreeable, because I love her very much!"
Of course, they're not the only pair still enjoying a rosy future. Will you accept our offer to check in on all your favorite Bachelor Nation pairs?