Love Is Blind’s Clay Explains Why He Came on Show Despite His ‘Self-Doubt’ About Marriage

Clay Gravesande is shedding more light on his personal struggles on Love Is Blind.

The season 6 star was open about his hesitations to get married and stay loyal in a relationship throughout his time on the series — all the way up to his wedding day.

In the season 6 finale, which aired on Wednesday, Clay ultimately said no to fiancée Amber Desiree “AD” Smith at the altar, claiming he was “not ready” and still needed to “work” on himself before committing to a marriage.

Though he didn’t walk away from the show married, Clay, 31, is now opening up to PEOPLE about why he decided to come on the series, given his commitment concerns, and what was going through his head leading up to his wedding day.

“I think for me, I was battling a lot,” he explains. “I have conversations with myself all the time where I can make a commitment, and then also within me making that commitment, I have self-doubts.”

“And so I think what you’re seeing is a moment of self-doubt, based off how I was raised,” he continues. “And my parents were married for 24 years, but I [spoke about] it on the show that I saw my dad have some infidelity moments. So I think for me, I made the commitment, but when I was actually in it, I was like, ‘Can I really do this?’ So it was a lot of self-doubt coming through.”

Reflecting on his journey with AD, Clay notes that one of the biggest lessons he learned about having a fiancée was “incorporating her into my life.”

“I think when we had issues when sometimes I couldn’t stay at the townhouse that we moved into,” he shares. “I’m allergic to dogs, and her dog loved me, he was always in my face. I loved her dog too. But it was a couple of struggles that we had, [especially] in my work schedule. But once I started having her sleep over in my actual house and come to me, come to the lake with me, our relationship got a lot better.”

“And I think that if I would’ve just incorporated her [from the start], we would’ve had a much more smoother ride when we moved to the Charlotte area,” he notes.

And though there are things he wishes he had done differently, Clay says he’s ultimately proud of how he presented himself on the show.

“I’m going to stand by everything. I think for me it was like a roller coaster, but I went through those hurdles of emotions and it made me a better person so I wouldn’t change anything,” he says.

In Wednesday’s season 6 finale, Clay and AD made it to the altar, but AD said “yes” to her fiancé before he shockingly said “no.”

“I don’t think it’s responsible for me to say ‘I do.’ But I want you to know that I’m rocking with you,” he reasoned at their wedding. “I just don’t think it’s responsible for me to say ‘I do’ when I still need work. I still need to get the point where I’m 100 percent in … I’m gonna put the work in for you, and we’ll go through this together.”

“I won’t go there with you when I’m not ready. I can’t say yes right now. I’m sorry,” he continued, later adding in a confessional, “A lot of the work that needed to be done was my emotional empathy side…. I looked at myself in the mirror and said, ‘Am I a husband?’ and the answer was no. ‘Am I deeply in love?’ And the answer was no. Those are two things if you can’t say yes to those answers, why are you getting married?”

As AD broke down in tears in front of her family and friends, Clay asked why a timeline “mattered” and pushed for them to keep dating anyways. AD wasn’t on the same page — she had previously been candid about not wanting to date afterwards if he said no to her at the altar — and eventually shut down his advances for good.

“I love him, I really do. I’m really sad that I wasn’t enough for him to get right,” she said in an interview after the rejection. “I can’t drag him, I can’t force him and I’m not gonna f—ing beg him to f—ing pick me.”

“I don’t regret saying yes to him. My love is blind. There’s nothing that he could’ve shown me, told me, that would’ve changed my answer,” she added. “I don’t see myself continuing to date him. You don’t wanna pick me? Somebody else will. I’m done. My heart is broken.”