Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist’s last interview as a couple revealed a lot about their relationship.
The Golden Bachelor couple opened up about their romance ups and downs on a March episode of the “Dear Shandy” podcast just weeks before announcing their split after three months of marriage.
“Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations and we’ve looked closely at our situation — our living situation — and we’ve kind of come to the conclusion mutually that it’s time for us to dissolve our marriage,” Gerry, 72, revealed on the April 12 episode of Good Morning America, adding that it was the “best for the happiness of each of us to live apart.”
Us Weekly broke the news that Gerry had filed for divorce in his Indiana hometown that same day, citing an “irretrievable breakdown” as the reason for the split.
Golden Bachelor’s Gerry and Theresa Started Talking About Divorce Weeks Ago
Per the pair’s prenup, Gerry and Theresa, 70, will give back the wedding rings they exchanged during their January live TV nuptials. “I think that’s the rule, I think I have to give this ring back. Sad to say,” Theresa told GMA. “But, you know what, we don’t have to give back the memories.”
Scroll down to see what Gerry and Theresa revealed about their relationship on the “Dear Shandy” podcast ahead of their divorce:
First Impressions
Gerry told podcast cohosts Sharleen Joynt and Andy Levine that he had a “good first impression” of Theresa when she made her Golden Bachelor debut in her “birthday suit.” Theresa, however, admitted that she wasn’t as confident in her limo entrance as she seemed.
“I didn’t want to do what I did. I’m the one who suggested it in the first place. But then when I knew what he was all about, I wanted to change it,” Theresa shared. “I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do this anymore. We have the same story. This doesn’t make sense anymore for me to do this.’ But, you know, I went through with it.”
Despite second-guessing her choice, Theresa said she felt an “intense attraction” to Gerry upon exiting the limo. “I was just trying to get through the moment. And I go, ‘Oh, wow. Like, something’s happening here.’”
Their immediate attraction led Gerry to break his kids’ rule for him to not kiss anyone on the first night of the show. “I screwed up right off the bat,” he joked. “She got me right from the get-go.”
‘Golden Bachelor’ Contestants Who Addressed Gerry and Theresa’s Split
Personality Pros and Cons
Noting that he and Theresa are “so much alike,” Gerry said their similar personalities could sometimes lead to issues when resolving tension. “When we do have conflict, we’re both locked in at a certain spot that maybe is very close but not identical,” Gerry explained. “And then we look at each other and go, ‘Oh, what’s going on here?’”
Theresa went on to note that the “biggest surprise” in their relationship was the fact that they are very similar to each other. “I’m extremely self-disciplined. He is too. We’re very organized, very dogmatic, we’re very outgoing,” she added. “We’re efficiency experts in the kitchen.”
Work/Life Conflict
Theresa revealed the one of the biggest hurdles they experienced in their relationship was the fact that she continued to work. Admitting that she thought she would on be on The Golden Bachelor for “two weeks,” she stated: “I honestly thought, ‘Oh, let me just get through the first night.’ And I stayed and I stayed and I stayed, and my employer was so good to me. And before I left, I kind of said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you.’”
Theresa also indicated that her New Jersey finance job made it difficult for her and Gerry to move in together. “Right now, it’s a long-distance relationship, essentially. So until we decide on a place to really live, then I can really make a big decision to say, ‘OK, we’re going to live in this place or that place,’” she stated. “And originally, it was South Carolina. We’re still not sure if that’s what it is.”
Gerry, for his part, said he would “go through phases” regarding how he felt about Theresa’s career. “I guess the difficult part is I went on to the show to find my partner, and I’ve been retired for a long time. I wanted fun [and] adventure. I wanted to go do [things],” he confessed. “So that is the crux of it, right now, is when does that start? I think the living arrangement is really secondary to the freedom of being able to go and enjoy life and do.”
How They Fought
“We yell and scream and then say sorry, and then, we’re better for it,” Theresa said of how she and Gerry argued. Gerry, meanwhile, described their fighting style as “intellectual jousting,” adding that Theresa was better at apologizing than he was.
“Both of us need to forget about being right or proving our own point and finding a compromise area,” he continued. “Ironically, after I retired, my second career was a mediator. … Sometimes that training is counterproductive with a partner, with a spouse, because you try to be detached and you try to be unemotional, and I’m not. I’m very much the emotional guy. So, I have a little internal conflict there.”
Later on in the episode, Theresa said one piece of advice she would give other couples is to keep relationship conflicts between themselves. “If there are issues in your relationship, don’t go to other people about it,” she stated. “Don’t talk to anyone else about it. Talk to each other about it. … You should just go to each other.”
‘Golden Bachelor’ Experience Takeaways
“[I learned] that you don’t have to know each other that long to know that there is something and there’s a connection and that it works, that it would have taken a lot longer than this to get to the point that we’re at,” Theresa said of her experience on the ABC dating series’ debut season. “I can’t even believe that this process worked, and we did it. I didn’t go into this expecting that this was what was going to happen.”
Gerry, for his part, said he went into The Golden Bachelor with the idea that “falling into a relationship [at an older age] would be easier,” but came out realizing that was not the case. “You still have to put in the work,” he shared. “You still have to honor the other person and you still have to find their love language. You still have to do all the work to build a relationship.”
Gerry continued: “In a way, with us, that was made a little more difficult because we got married and then we started the process of knowing each other, which is backwards of what 99.9 percent of the people in the world do. And it’s been good, but it’s not a cakewalk. I mean, we really have to actively work to get to know each other and be pleasing to each other.”
