The distance between Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist may have turned out to be the issue that came between The Golden Bachelor couple, who announced their divorce just three months after tying the knot on live TV. However, that wasn’t the first location-based roadblock Gerry hit on the show. Faith Martin was eliminated after Hometown dates, when she told the Golden lead that she had no intention of leaving her Washington community (or her dead horse). Looking back she can now see that it all worked out for the best and why she wouldn’t get back together with the single-again Indiana retiree.
Faith Martin was the third-place finisher on the inaugural season of The Golden Bachelor, and she’s made no secret of the fact that she fell in love with Gerry Turner during her time on the show. While she’s still in touch with Gerry and can envision the life they could have had together, Faith said on the Bachelor Happy Hour: Golden Hour podcast that his decision to send her home revealed some differences in their personalities that would keep her from dipping her toes back into that pool. She told the hosts:
I probably could have married Gerry and we’d probably be pretty darn happy. I guess knowing what I know now, I think he really comes from an analytical side instead of leading his life with his heart, and that just doesn’t work for me. I feel like he made a decision out of the logical choice and not his heart. And I lead my whole life with my heart. My heart is what gets me through everything.
Gerry Turner chose to end Faith Martin’s journey after learning that she didn’t plan to leave Washington, and while common sense does seem like it should play a role in choosing a spouse, I understand where Faith’s coming from in wishing his heart would have put up more of a fight.
Her own insistence that she couldn’t leave her home could also be seen as making a logical choice, but Faith Martin said if they’d have been right for each other, there’s nothing that could have kept them apart. Regarding her Hometown date honesty, she said:
I kind of knew that I sealed my fate in that way, but I felt like my intuition was leading me, as much as I was in love with Gerry, I don’t know that I could have said no, and yet, I wasn’t absolutely sure it was right, you know? Because I was all in, and then when I thought about leaving, on my Hometown I said, ‘You need to know how important it is for me to be near my community, my family, my kids, my grandkids. But I needed to have him know that I’m not a person that can see their kids, like, twice a year. But what’s weird is that I think if I was truly in love with someone, there is no amount of distance that would keep me away, right? So it was an intuitive sense that maybe it’s not all what I think.
Faith Martin maintained that she would have kept her home, continued riding her horse and singing in her band, but she also would have been open to splitting time with Gerry Turner between Washington and Indiana.
That also seems to be the strategy of Joan Vassos, the incoming lead of The Golden Bachelorette, as she told Gerry Turner that she thought you almost had to live a dual life in order to make such a relationship work at this age, with the golden-aged contestants having established homes and families, and therefore being less open to moving across the country. We will see how it works out when her journey premieres on the 2024 TV schedule this fall. In the meantime, Jenn Tran is about to kick off her season of The Bachelorette at 8 p.m. ET Monday, July 8, on ABC and streaming the next day with a Hulu subscription.
