NEED TO KNOW
Gerry Turner didn’t have the honeymoon phase he was expecting with ex-wife Theresa Nist.
On Monday, Nov. 3, Entertainment Weekly released an excerpt from the former Golden Bachelor star’s upcoming novel, Golden Years: What I’ve Learned From Love, Loss, and Reality TV. As Turner, 74, reflected on his three-month marriage to Nist, he claimed that the intimacy in their relationship faded just five days after their wedding.
“My first night at her house, she took out sheets and pillows before telling me, ‘Tomorrow’s a big workday. I need a good night’s sleep. Do you mind sleeping on the sofa?’ ” Turner wrote in part.
While he said he told her it was “no problem,” Turner admitted he did internally wonder why she asked that. This was also his first ever visit to her New Jersey home, despite tying the knot that same week, and Turner acknowledged that he didn’t want to make Nist uncomfortable if she “wanted to take things slowly or was having mixed feelings.”
Frank Micelotta/Disney via Getty
As the days went by, however, Turner claimed that he never moved from his spot on the couch into the bed with Nist, and they did not have a conversation about changing the arrangements.
The pair’s whirlwind romance began on the inaugural season of The Golden Bachelor, which premiered in August 2023 and ended with them getting engaged in the finale that November. On Jan. 4, 2024, the couple got married, but they filed for divorce three months later.
Turner wrote that the distant version of Nist during his visit was “very different” from how she behaved after their engagement in Costa Rica months prior. It wasn’t until they returned to the U.S. that, he said, “she ignored opportunities for intimacy.”
At first, he said he thought the stress of keeping their relationship a secret while planning a wedding was impacting their dynamic, but then he started to think otherwise.
“It should have been an awesome trip,” the excerpt read. “This was our first time together that we didn’t have to hide. We were married. It should have been a frickin’ honeymoon!”
He later added that “the rejection” from Nist “rattled me deeply — and stayed with me for a long time,” despite Turner thinking of himself as a “confident” person. He said he began to wonder if his then-wife wasn’t attracted to his looks, or if he “offended” Nist or “hurt her feelings.”
Disney/John & Joseph Photography
Beyond sex, Turner noted that there were several other forms of intimacy that “seemed just out of reach” with Nist, such as expressing their feelings with one another and making it clear that they are each other’s priority.
“With the signs that Theresa cared about me fading, everything started to bother me,” Turner confessed, further noting that “sleeping on the sofa had made me a little bitter.”
Other incidents throughout the trip contributed to his frustration, including a night when he alleged that Nist had a negative reaction to his driving five miles over the speed limit and another when she told him he needed to go to Lululemon to buy new clothes.
“I really didn’t want to get bent out of shape over this, even though I wondered why I had driven fourteen hours to sleep alone and have my wardrobe criticized,” he recalled. “So I tried to turn my frown upside down by taking selfies of us in the dressing room and later posting on Instagram about what a great time we’d had. Truthfully, however, I realized I could never embrace the East Coast lifestyle.”
PEOPLE reached out to Theresa Nist for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
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Golden Years: What I’ve Learned from Love, Loss, and Reality TV by Gerry Turner hits shelves on Nov. 4 and is available now for preorder, wherever books are sold.
