‘the golden bachelor’: faith tells all about why she and gerry were wrong for each other

Faith Martin, 60, was once a homeless Mormon teen who, at 19, married a guy nicknamed Big Papa and Sasquatch eight days after their first kiss. After 21 years, they divorced — he got the

Harleys; she got the horse and trailer — and he died in a fall in 2022. A radio host, professional singer, former high school teacher and podcaster on _The Dating Chronicles of a Fifty

Something Female_,__ she won fame as the initial front-runner on _The Golden Bachelor_, nabbing the First Impression rose, the first official declaration of affection by bachelor Gerry

Turner, 72. She lost out in the end but tells AARP she came out a winner in many ways. Craig Sjodin/ABC WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF AND ABOUT GERRY? Oh my gosh, so many things. The

minute I looked into Gerry’s eyes, I noticed that he was somebody different than who I had normally been attracted to. SO, GERRY WAS A TOUCHSTONE WHO HELPED YOU LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF? All

kinds of things. Like, why would this be something I wanted to explore now and not in the past? Why didn’t I explore more of a relationship like this? My connection with Gerry was more on a

soulful, spiritual level instead of just a pure sexual chemistry level. Not that there wasn’t chemistry, but I just instantly had a very heart-to-heart soulful connection with him that I

felt very calm and good about, and that felt very heartwarming to me. So I realized it was something I wanted and needed in my life, and maybe that had been absent in my relationships. That

was the first big “Aha!” WHAT OTHER EMOTIONS WELLED UP IN YOU? Other things, like the triggers of insecurity that popped up for me being in a room with all these magnificent, accomplished,

gorgeous women that seemed to be very fancy and different than me — who, you know, ride horses, hike, don’t wear makeup, run around barefoot, swim in the rivers and go camping. I went

through a feeling of “What am I doing on the show?” This was for, like, fancy people, and I’m feeling very inadequate. John Fleenor/ABC DID YOU GET ANYTHING FROM BEING WITH THEM, BESIDES

GLAMOROUS INTIMIDATION? That was an “Aha!” too. Sleeping in a room with four women and then in these group things, I was learning about women in general, and wondering why I had not nurtured

enough female relationships in my life. And how wonderful it was to be with these women. Why did I let my life go by without forming relationships with groups of women?