The Golden Bachelor couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist admittedly were at odds about Theresa’s desire to continue working her job in finance services before they decided to split.
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Theresa’s career apparently drove a wedge between Gerry and herself after their televised wedding on January 4, which seemed to play a significant role in their breakup, which they publicly announced on April 12. On the same day as their split announcement, Gerry filed for divorce in Indiana.
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Prior to their split, Gerry and Theresa opened up about how Theresa’s job was an obstacle they had to overcome that certainly caused conflict in their relationship.
“There is a hurdle right now. I still work, so that’s the hurdle,” Theresa, 70, shared on a March episode of the “Dear Shandy” podcast.
Theresa explained that her leave of absence from work in New Jersey to appear on The Golden Bachelor — a mere two weeks she had requested from her employer in 2023 — ended up being longer than anticipated.
“I honestly thought, ‘Oh, let me just get through the first night,'” Theresa recalled of her mindset going into filming Gerry’s The Golden Bachelor season.
“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.’ So they’re kind of stuck with me.”
Theresa insisted that while she doesn’t plan to work until she’s 80, her career is part of the reason why she and Gerry were living in different states after getting married.
“Right now, it’s a long-distance relationship, essentially,” Theresa explained.
Gerry currently resides at his lake house in Indiana, which is about 45 minutes away from his ageing father, Everett Turner.
Theresa, meanwhile, still lives in her native New Jersey, where she has a home of her own near several of her grandsons.
“Until we decide on a place to really live, then I can really make a big decision to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to live in this place or that place,'” Theresa said at the time.
“And originally, it was South Carolina. We’re still not sure if that’s what it is.”
When asked how he felt about Theresa’s job, Theresa appeared to brace herself.
And Gerry replied, “I go through phases. 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,” he added. “I wanted to go do [things].”
Gerry elaborated of the pair’s situation in March, “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.”
Gerry then slipped in a detail, appearing to take a shot at his wife.
“This is Theresa’s first week in Indiana at my house,” Gerry noted.
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Based on Gerry’s claim, it took Theresa nearly four months to visit Gerry’s home after their engagement aired on The Golden Bachelor in November 2023.
Gerry and Theresa apparently went out with his friends once they reunited in Indiana, and his pals said they loved Theresa and thought very highly of her.
“This morning, I see those same friends playing Pickle Ball, and they’re all raving, like, ‘Theresa was so nice. Is she enjoying her time here in Indiana?'” Gerry shared.
“And, you know, it was all positive comments. So that hurdle is still there. And right now, we’re dealing with it. It’s just something we’re going to have to find a way around.”
But Theresa teased how she and Gerry had a lot of fun things coming up, such as a trip with Gerry’s friends and also their vacation to Italy, which ABC had gifted them at the end of Gerry’s The Golden Bachelor season.
“A lot will happen,” Theresa insisted, while Gerry appeared emotionless and just nodded his head in agreeance.
Gerry then touched on another conflict in his marriage.
Gerry shared of his dynamic with Theresa: “Our cultures are so different too.”
Gerry described how Theresa lives in a really population-dense area in New Jersey, explaining, “She walks to any shop, and it’s all very close and there’s so many people.”
Regarding his own lifestyle, Gerry shared, “I could turn the camera around and show you the lake [I live on], and there’s 500 houses on this lake. But when you go in any direction, there’s nothing but cornfields. I have to drive 25 minutes to a grocery store.”
Theresa confirmed, however, that she liked Indiana and thought it was “great” and “beautiful,” which prompted Gerry to add how they were still trying to figure things out.
“If we were both Midwesterners or both East Coast people, I think it would be easier,” Gerry admitted.
Theresa also pointed out how it was “a great sign” that Gerry wanted her to stop working so that she could spend more time with him.
“I think we need to seriously look at places to live [for me to do that], because I also don’t just stop working — I have to unravel my home, and he has to unravel his home. We both have to sell homes and we have to go to a new home,” Theresa explained.
“That’s a lot, and there’s a big difference when you’re really old, too. He’s near his children and grandchildren, and I’m near my daughter and grandsons there. I have a son in South Carolina with three sons there, so it’s a lot to unpack and to change.”
Theresa acknowledged how “it’s not like you’re carefree and you can just go” anywhere you want to at any time.
Theresa ironically insisted, “We’re going to work through this. This is going to work. We just have to figure it out.”
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During The Golden Bachelor’s run, Theresa dished about her job in finance and how she taught herself all about the stock market when she was in her 40s.
“I went to the library and read every book I could find on stocks and the markets,” Theresa wrote via Instagram late last year.
“I also started watching CNBC and listening to Bloomberg. In fact, I interned for a short while at CNBC… I no longer daytrade, but I do remain in the industry with a great company, holding a position that I love, working with people I love.”
Gerry listed April 12 as his date of separation from Theresa in the divorce papers, and he cited an “irretrievable breakdown” of marriage as the cause of their split from Theresa, according to Us Weekly.
Theresa also confirmed on ABC Nightline that she and the retired fast-food restaurant owner had signed a prenuptial agreement.
“So many people wanted us to sign a prenup, and we do [have one],” Theresa revealed with a big smile. “We thought it would be best for our families.”
Up until April 12, the couple had been putting on a united front in public.
Gerry and Theresa just recently walked the red carpet together and filmed an episode of Celebrity Family Feud, after which Gerry boasted about the couple’s “blended family” reuniting on social media.
The couple’s bombshell divorce announcement made headlines about two weeks after reports they were still living separately had surfaced.
During their interview with Juju Chang on ABC Nightline, Gerry and Theresa revealed they’re divorcing because neither one of them was willing to relocate and move away from their adult children and families.
“The thing that strikes me the most, and in our conversations, is how dedicated both of us our to our families,” Gerry said as Theresa nodded in agreement.
“So we look at these situations and I think we just feel like it’s best for the happiness of each of us to live apart.”
But Juju was openly skeptical of the couple’s explanation, as many Bachelor Nation alums have been as well.
“I hear what you’re saying… and yet throughout the process you said you were 100% committed to making it work,” she said. “In November you told me you were thinking of moving to South Carolina to be together. How did it all fall apart?”
“Yeah, so that was the plan,” Theresa replied.
“We looked at homes in South Carolina. We [also] considered New Jersey. We just looked at home after home but we never got to the point where we made that decision.”
Sessions with a marriage counselor apparently helped Gerry and Theresa decide to move in the direction of divorce rather than trying to stay together.
However, the reality TV stars insisted they have not fallen out of love, despite their choice to part ways.
During the ABC interview, Theresa also insisted a November 2023 media report that Gerry misrepresented his past throughout The Golden Bachelor’s production and broadcast run and allegedly had a live-in girlfriend of nearly three years before he appeared on the show played no role in her decision to divorce.
“No, not for me,” Theresa said. “Because Gerry had already discussed that with me, he had already explained that to me before the report was ever released — so we were good with that, that didn’t play into it.”
“No,” Gerry shrugged.
The Golden Bachelor stars also shared that they plan to continuing looking for love in new relationships.
“Oh yeah,” Gerry told Juju.
“Yes,” Theresa acknowledged. “And we tell everyone else to continue looking for love.”
When the Los Angeles Times previously asked Gerry if he’d continue to seek stardom or just live a quiet life with Theresa post-show, Gerry had replied, “I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive.”
“I can have a great, quiet life with Theresa and still look at the aspirations and ambitions that may be out there,” he elaborated in December.
“But I will say this, I am absolutely going to savor every moment until I get to that altar and say my ‘I do’s.’ I want every single moment to be as joyful for her as it is for me, and I never want to look back and feel I hurried through anything. We’ll deal with the aspirations after that.”
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About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.