Love Is Blind's Sara Talks 'Domino Effect' of Ben's Red Flags, Why She Feels He Had an 'Underlying Motive' on the Show (Exclusive)

Warning: this story contains spoilers from the season 8 finale of Love Is Blind.

Sara Carton is looking back on her Love Is Blind experience with a critical eye.

Though she has no regrets about her time on the Netflix series and her answer at the altar, Sara, 29, tells PEOPLE she can't help but wonder if her ex-fiancé Ben Mezzenga was there for the right reasons, especially after his response at the altar and the TikTok drama that came to light this season.

"Yeah, I don't know," she says. "Ben told me he wanted to be an actor. He moved to California to do that and pursue his dreams. When he told me that in the pods, I was like, 'I wanted to be Hannah Montana when I was young.' I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. I was like, 'Hey, good for you for moving to California and doing that.' You don't hear a lot about Minnesota people wanting to do that."

Despite seeing "some red flags" later on, Sara says she continued to believe Ben's intentions were pure. But then a video surfaced on TikTok, showing a woman crying over a man's alleged actions of mistreatment. Though she did not name Ben, users tagged him in the comments section and Sara claims he later owned up to the video being about him.

"I'm like, 'First of all, why is this girl making this TikTok? It must be serious. And second of all, why do all these women in the comments know who Ben is?'" she recalls, noting that when the woman made a second video alleging that the man blocked her, "I asked him, 'Did you block her?' And he said yes."

"So that's when I was like, okay, it is about Ben," she continues. "And so it was wild. I was so conflicted ... hearing Ben's side of the story, but I wasn't really getting much. But then I was seeing so much online. I honestly didn't know how to handle it. I didn't want to just throw away the relationship just because of this one big thing happening. I still had so much hope and also wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt."

"The TikTok was huge, so that told me I needed to learn a lot more about Ben than what I already know," Sara adds. "I needed to ask him the hard questions."

Ultimately, Ben did not provide Sara answers to those tougher questions, which was part of the reason she said no on their wedding day. And even though they discussed how they were feeling beforehand, Sara says she was "shocked" when he suggested they continue dating despite her saying "no" at the altar.

"Ultimately, me and Ben talked multiple times before the wedding of discussing, is this the safest decision for us? Is this smartest decision for us? We really need to think about that. And so we were on the same page, and he knew coming in what I was going to say," she explains. "And so when he asked that, I wasn't shocked he wanted to do that or be together after, but I was shocked he asked that at the altar, knowing the circumstance of we are here to say yes or no."

"And also just with the whole entire concept of you walk away forever," she adds. "I was like, that's disrespectful in a way of what we signed up for and the whole entire point of why we're here. And so I was shocked he asked that there. And also me saying no to a marriage, why would I continue dating someone? If you're going to say no to that, why even continue the relationship?"

After their wedding day, Sara discovered Ben allegedly handed out YouTube business cards to girls to promote his page. Considering all that unfolded, Sara says she's still committed to her theories about Ben.

"I was questioning if he was there for the right reasons," she says. "I don't doubt that we had a good connection because we really did. I wouldn't have said yes if I didn't feel like we had a good connection. But after a while with everything happening and then the YouTube cards and then my friends telling me about their experiences with him at the U, it just didn't add up. So there could have been [an] underlying motive there."

"In hindsight now, I'm thinking if I was going to say yes [on the wedding day] and I led him to believe or I told him I was going to say yes, I feel like honestly he would've said yes just because he wanted to make it farther and be a couple that comes out of this," she adds. "That's just my assumption... I wouldn't be surprised."

Ben has not addressed any of these claims publicly but is likely to do so at the season 8 reunion, which airs on March 9.

As she reflects on their journey, Sara says she has more clarity about what went down — and doesn't regret saying no at the altar, even if it meant she walked away alone.

"He was telling me everything I wanted to hear. I mean, he was obsessed with me. He was telling me he loved me. He was telling me on and off camera, 'I would marry you today.' And so I was like, oh my gosh, I love that a guy loves me for my heart and mind," she says.

"But there were a lot of things that I was confused about," she admits. "I felt like after a while I was like, okay, is he just telling me what I want to hear or what he thinks I want to hear? And then I would step away from a conversation and question, is there any weight to his words? That was in a lot of conversations, even though we had a great time together. But in hindsight, something just felt off."

"It just didn't feel like there's a lot of curiosity in my mind that he had or engagement or just wanting to get to know me more. I was questioning how genuine it really was after a bit," she adds. "But I just know who Ben is now."

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Love Is Blind season 8 is now streaming on Netflix, and the reunion is set to air on Sunday, March 9 at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.