Golden

Finding love on reality TV isn’t easy — and neither is sustaining a long-term relationship once the cameras stop rolling. After wrapping the second season of ABC’s The Golden Bachelor, star Mel Owens and his winner, Peg Munson, say they aren’t looking to the couples before them for a roadmap.

“I don’t know about the others who came before us. I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about us,” Owens told The Hollywood Reporter one day after revealing the ending to his season during the live After the Final Rose finale special — that he picked Peg and that they remain together, though not engaged.

The first Golden Bachelor in the reality dating franchise, Gerry Turner, was in Owens’ live finale audience — but he was there with the fiancée he met after the show; his estranged ex, Theresa Nist, was also in attendance, though she noticeably kept her distance following back-and-forth allegations exchanged in the press.

“It’s a tough way to progress after the show, because I’ve only known her [Peg] for a few weeks before the show stopped filming. Now I’m getting to know her, and this is the first time we’re really together for a sustained time and out,” Owens explains. He and Munson finished filming their season three months prior and have been carrying out their relationship in hiding ever since. “When you’re sequestered in your home and you can’t leave, it’s tough to be real. You get to know each other better, but it’s tough,” he admits. “Our understanding 1763190927 is going to be to be together and grow.”

Before Owens even made his debut on ABC‘s senior-aged spinoff series of The Bachelor, the 66-year-old former NFL-player-turned-lawyer had to atone for some off-putting comments he made on a podcast shortly before filming began. The first night of his season featured his group of 60-and-over female contestants taking him to task for saying on that podcast that if the women are “60 or over, I’m cutting them.” He had said, “This is not The Silver Bachelor, this is The Golden Bachelor.”

But he apologized. The women forgave him, and then several of them fell for Owens, including runner-up Cindy Cullers, who self-eliminated before her Fantasy Suite overnight date because Owens said he wasn’t ready to propose by the end of the show.

“My whole thing [on the show] was that it has to happen naturally. It’s gonna take some time. I’m not gonna force anything, because I don’t have to force anything,” he says, standing by his stance that his goal at the end of the Golden Bachelor wasn’t a proposal. “Peg was on the same page all along. When we were in the Fantasy Suite, we spoke about it, and I went, ‘Wow, she’s on the same page.’ We’re going to write our own story when we want and whenever we want.”

Munson jumps in, adding to THR, “We’re not looking for a quick fix. We’re not looking for a quick marriage. We’re not looking for the quick proposal. As I said throughout the entire show, I’m not looking for the fireworks — they fizzle out. I’m looking for the fireplace. You refuel that fireplace and you get a beautiful, slow burn for the rest of our lives, and that’s what we want. We want that mature, sustainable relationship.”

Instead of promising forever, Owens gave Munson a promise ring. What that gesture means now to Munson, a 62-year-old retired firefighter and bomb tech from Las Vegas, is that they get to “continue to write our own love story.”

“Being in our 60s, it’s nice that we get the prerogative to do that,” she says. “As you grow older, you realize that’s something we’ve earned the right to do.”

Turning back to Cullers, Owens says “she had her own idea about what she wanted out of the show, and she wanted to be married off the island. She said it numerous times: ‘Til death do us part. I’m gonna be hand in hand, ring on my finger.’ She wanted to be married. That was her endgame. That wasn’t my endgame. My endgame is to find somebody and to understand them and have a life with them and grow slowly, like Peg said. Cindy wanted to be married. And I wasn’t going to tell her something that I didn’t hold true in my heart.”

Munson insists that the Owens she knows is “not afraid of commitment. He loves marriage. He loves commitment,” she says. “He just wasn’t ready to commit to her at that moment. We both want something sustainable. We want something long term, therefore, let’s take it slow. I know I felt love for him. He felt love for me. We get to write our own love story at this age, and that’s the cool part of it.”

Next up in the Bachelor franchise will be The Bachelorette (not the network’s usual winter staple, The Bachelor) for season 22 with Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul in the title role, premiering March 22. The Golden Bachelor franchise has yet to be officially renewed, but both Owens and Munson put forth Debbie Siebers as their pick to be the next Golden Bachelorette (“If I was casting, that’s my No. 1 choice,” says Owens of his ex-contestant), while Munson has advice for the producers for a third season of The Golden Bachelor.

“Let things happen more naturally instead of pushing it,” she says of the reality dating process, which filmed for six weeks. “If there’s a connection, there’s going to be a connection. You can’t force things. I think there would be a lot more success stories if there was just a little more room to breathe. I know the more I was pushed, the more defenses I had up. I was having feelings for him, and my heart was opening up to him, but sometimes I felt pushed, and I’m like, ‘You guys, just give me a minute here. Let me breathe. Let me process this.’”

She continues, “Because you’re dealing with something very fragile, and that’s people’s hearts. Nobody wants to get their heart broken. At this age, a lot of us have had our hearts broken not once but twice or maybe three times. Let’s back up and give us time. I think they would get a lot more authenticity and connection if they did that.”