The Golden Bachelor exes Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist recently revealed how they fought during their relationship and that it got pretty brutal at times.
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Theresa and Gerry appeared on a March episode of the “Dear Shandy” podcast that was released several weeks before The Golden Bachelor couple publicly announced their split and decision to get a divorce on April 12.
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During the joint interview, Gerry and Theresa talked about their fighting style and how it wasn’t rainbows and butterflies all the time.
“We yell and scream — and then say ‘sorry,'” “And then we’re better for it,” Theresa said with a laugh.
Gerry, who was covering his mouth with his hand, then offered his two cents on the topic of conflict in his marriage.
“It’s more like intellectual jousting to start with,” Gerry quipped. “There’s a point and then a counterpoint. And then it will accelerate a little bit.”
But Gerry said he and Theresa tended to reach a point where they’d look at each other and want to resolve things.
“We’ll start looking at each other, like, ‘Really?! Really?!’ [I’ll say], ‘I’m totally right,’ and then she’ll say, ‘No, I’m totally right.’ And then we go, ‘Yeah, it doesn’t matter,'” Gerry said.
When asked which person typically said, “I’m sorry,” first, Gerry replied, “I think Theresa is a little better at that than I am.”
“She’s pretty good at knowing when, ‘Okay, this isn’t important,'” Gerry shared at the time. “[She’ll say], ‘Sorry, let’s move on.'”
Theresa then interjected and said, “I want to take it back. I don’t scream. I can’t even get above [a speaking] volume.”
Gerry clarified how it was “modified screaming” in Theresa’s case, and he added, “Both of us need to forget about being right or proving our own point and finding a compromise area.”
Gerry revealed that ironically, his second career — after he retired from owning a fast-food restaurant — was working as a mediator.
“I did small claims court and divorce, and I did workplace mediation and all that,” Gerry shared.
“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.”
Gerry joked about how he cried a lot more on The Golden Bachelor than Theresa appeared to.
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Gerry and Theresa got engaged on The Golden Bachelor’s finale, which aired in late November 2023 on ABC.
The pair decided to rush down the altar, and so they agreed to get married on a live televised special that aired January 4 on ABC.
Shortly after Gerry and Theresa publicly announced their split in a lengthy ABC Nightline interview, part of which aired on Good Morning America, Gerry filed for divorce in Indiana.
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.
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.”
Gerry is still living at his lake house in Indiana, which is about 45 minutes away from his ageing father, Everett Turner.
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Theresa, meanwhile, has a home in New Jersey near several of her grandsons, and she works a full-time job in financial services.
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.