'Bachelorette' Emily Maynard, Jef Holm break up

Another Bachelorette romance bites the dust.

Yes, it's official: Emily Maynard and Jef Holm have called off their engagement.

"I am sorry to tell you that Jef and I have, indeed, parted ways," Maynard confirms to People.com. "It was a very difficult and heartbreaking decision."

She continued: "As you know, at first I wasn't sure that I should even be The Bachelorette, but I am a hopeless romantic and I do believe in the show." She went on to say she has "no regrets because I did find love and shared an incredible journey" and, she says, their love was "so real." But they are "just at different points in our lives."

Finally,she tells People, "I'm excited and hopeful for the next chapter in my life with my daughter, Ricki. I do hope that you will respect our privacy and allow us the time we need to heal."

Holm confirmed the news, saying, "I've never loved someone so much in my whole life, Emily is the best person and mom I have ever met. She opened up her world to me and I fell in love with her, [her daughter] Ricki, her family and the Hendricks." He says it "breaks my heart, but we have decided to break up."

He even sounds chipper about it. "Emily and I are great friends and I hope we can continue to be friends forever. Everyone wants a salacious story to break, but the truth is we are just two people who fell in love and tried our hardest to make it work. I will always love her."

The buzz of the breakup started about a month after the two got engaged in July. In August, Us Weekly touted trouble on their summer vacation when Emily was said to have been texting Oakland Raiders quarterback Matt Leinert. The two denied all the reports. This past weekend, the buzz of a split surfaced again.

USA Today