Theresa Nist’s daughter, Jen Woolston, has nothing but love for Gerry Turner and his family amid his divorce from her mother.
“I had only the loveliest experiences being with Gerry and his family,” Woolston wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, April 17, sharing a Golden Wedding portrait of the blended brood. “I will hold the days we were officially family in my heart forever, and will think of them as family always.”
Woolston and her brother, Tommy Nist, are the two children of Theresa Nist and her late first husband, Billy Nist. Years after Billy’s death, Woolston signed her mother up for The Golden Bachelor, which aired in 2023. On the finale of the Bachelor Nation spinoff, Theresa, 70, got engaged to Turner, 72. They wed on January 4 in a televised ceremony, with Woolston serving as maid of honor and Tommy escorting Theresa down the aisle. (Turner’s two daughters from his first marriage with late wife Toni, Angie and Jenny, rounded out the wedding party, alongside his and Theresa’s respective grandchildren.)
After three months of marriage and disagreements about where to put down roots, Turner and Theresa called it quits.
“Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations,” Turner said on Good Morning America during its April 12 broadcast. “We’ve looked closely at our living situations and we’ve kind of come to the conclusion mutually that it’s time for us to dissolve our marriage.”
He added, “The things that strike me the most in our conversations, it’s been how dedicated both of us are to our families. 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.”
While Turner asserted that he “still” loves Theresa, they confirmed that they disagreed about where to live. (Theresa is based in New Jersey, where she works, while Turner has a lakefront property in Indiana.)
“We looked at homes in South Carolina [and] we considered New Jersey,” Theresa said on GMA. “We just looked at home after home, but we never got to the point where we made that decision.”
Us Weekly broke the news later that day that Turner filed for divorce in Indiana, citing “irretrievable breakdown” of the marriage as his reason for the breakup. Per the docs, and the GMA sit-down, Turner and Theresa had signed a prenuptial agreement and plan to honor it in the court proceedings. They will also return their Neil Lane engagement and wedding rings based on contractual stipulations.
Several days after confirming their separation, Theresa noted via Instagram that she was grateful for all the love and support from fans.
“It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, something I never expected to happen at this point in my life and I truly thought it was going to last forever,” she wrote via Instagram on Monday, April 15. “It turns out, even at the age of 70, you don’t know everything. Sometimes things don’t go the way you planned and that’s OK.”
Theresa added, “I take so many positives away from this experience, most importantly and above all the incredible friends I now have in all of these amazing, wonderful women and in Angie and Jenny, Payton and Charlee, the producers, the production crew and so many of you.”
Woolston reposted her mom’s message to her Instagram Story that same day.
