Jason Tartick is taking the time to process and embrace his emotions after his split from Kat Stickler.
“Every day gets a little better, I’m doing OK,” Tartick, 36, told E! News on Thursday, October 31, while attending Heidi Klum’s Halloween bash. “Breakups are just really hard. That’s it — they’re really hard.”
The former Bachelorette contestant has experienced two public breakups in the past two years: his split from Kaitlyn Bristowe in August 2023, then the end of his relationship with Stickler in October. Through his romantic ups and downs, Tartick says has learned to follow his own breakup advice.
“I think just sitting in it and learning from everything,” he said. “And just trying to grow to be better than you were yesterday. But it’s never easy. It’s tough.”
The “Trading Secrets” podcast host doesn’t shy away from his emotions — and he doesn’t think other men should, either. “I think the biggest thing is not being afraid of your feelings,” Tartick explained, adding that he’s turned to “meditation, grounding, all that stuff” in the wake of his latest split. He noted he’s now taking it “day by day.”
When asked where he’s headed, Tartick said he’s looking for “growth” and room to focus on himself. “Just trying to pour into myself a little bit, figure out what’s next,” he added.
The former reality star added that he might relocate now that he doesn’t have anything “tying me” to Nashville, where he currently resides.
Tartick moved to Nashville when he and Bristowe, 39, were dating. The exes, who were together for four years and engaged for two, continued to share custody their two dogs, Pinot and Ramen, following their August 2023 split.
However, Bristowe revealed in September that she was “no longer willing to coparent” the pets after the animals started to become anxious due to all the back and forth.
“I’m doing what’s best for the dogs,” Bristowe said during an “Off the Vine” podcast episode at the time. “[Jason] is more than welcome to see them if he is in town for the weekend or wants to take them for a walk. I would never keep them from anyone.”
Despite not being tied to Bristowe and their dogs in Tennessee, Tartick remained in Nashville while dating Stickler, 30, long distance. Stickler, who is the mother of 4-year-old daughter MK, resides in Tampa, Florida. (Stickler shares MK with ex-husband Mike Stickler, to whom she was married from 2019 to 2021.)
“It’s like a full reset, and an unexpected one. But hey, onward,” Tartick said of his new path on Thursday. “Just figuring it out.”
Tartick and Kat went public with their romance in June, confirming their breakup four months later.
“I am sad to share that Kat and I are no longer together,” he wrote via his Instagram Story on October 12. “It’s fair to say that I love hard with all my heart and fall fast. Sometimes in life that works out and other times, it doesn’t. This time it didn’t.”
Kat shared the news via her Instagram Story as well, calling it “amicable.” She noted that since she had such a public romance she had to “show this side [and] the aftermath” of the breakup.
“I just wanted to tell you guys, and it’s not love wasted,” she added. “I feel like sometimes it’s so easy to think when a relationship ends that the love was wasted but love is never wasted. That’s all I have to say.”
