Hey, they're folks, and welcome to I Do Partner two and if you got love right the first time around, this podcast ain't the one for you, because this podcast for folks who gave it a second try, third, even fourth sometime your hosts include it. And welcome to this episode. Sitting alongside my partner Amy Roboch here with TJ. Holmes and our guest today. Robes is somebody that I would argue is probably he is, probably has a resume that
he could host this show. We could recruit him to be one of our hosts of this show.
Absolutely, because we are talking with the original the og Golden Bash, Gary Turner. He has a new book that is out now called Golden Years What I've Learned from Love, Loss and Reality TV. And you are Gary right here. We're looking at you with the new love of your life, your new fiance, Lana.
Yeah, pretty awesome.
Congratulation, Thank you so much.
It's been wonderful.
It's been wonderful and wild, I bet because wild, Yes, a lot of emphasis on that, because theres a lot we haven't seen of your life, and we still the things we've seen have been wild. So there's a whole lot more to be told. But can we first and foremost get this out of the way.
What is the correct way to say your name? It's Gary, Gary, Gary. The main thing is the hard G Gary. So yeah, if my mom told me I was named after Saint Gerrard, okay, and that I had an Irish name, and technically it's supposed to be Gary Gary. But yeah, you know, you're kind of splitting here.
And it's such it's hard enough to get people not to say Jerry, right. You don't want to get too picky, right.
And you know, ever since the nuns whacked me on the head when I was in about third grade, I answered it both and I don't make waves about it.
It's always a big deal to get somebody's name right. And I think when people see it ge I throws people off and they see it spell. But Gary, it is good to have you in studio. Can we ask for how's your health? How are you physically? Give us an update on how you do?
Pretty good?
Actually, you know, there's been no change. I keep going to the doctor every six months and getting those blood tests that I'm supposed to get, and as long as I don't have symptoms, I don't have any treatment yet.
That's fantastic, it is. And the prognosis. Have they given you an idea about when treatment might have to start at some point?
So typically a person can have this disease from three to nine years before they need treatment. The problem is you don't know when to start the clock. So I don't know if they found mine in year three or year seven. But I'm way optimistic, and I have such a good reason to be optimistic now, you know, I'm thinking I got a long time. How do you feel? I mean, you look, I'm sitting here looking at you. You look great, You're upbeat, good energy. But how do you
physically feel? The question is always how does a normal seventy four year old guy supposed to feel? Because when you know you have aches and pains, or you have that little grogginess or whatever, it's like, is this normal for my age or is this something else? I choose to think it's just normal for my age. Guy.
I love that, you know, because I am a cancer survivor as well, and so when you have anything that feels off, you sometimes go to deaf con five like you start to worry, like this is it? This is the moment when my life changes and I get that. So little things are big things, and it's good to hear you are taking care of yourself and you are making sure you're being monitored.
Yeah. Thanks, and it's good that you can relate to that. You kind of get it, you know, I do.
I do. It's it's something that when you start RECOGNI that you don't. Your health is the most important thing you could possibly have, and you don't know that until it's taken away from you, right, So.
True that is is love helping your health. It's sure helping my outlook on life. I would like to think it transfers over to health. Absolutely.
They say that all the time, right, you have something, your upbeat, you are optimistic, you have something to look for, you have years you want now, and that's different and it can help health.
That is perfectly said. Every day you get up and you go, oh, I get another day with Lana. I get another day of adventure and excitement. I mean, really, we've known each other for getting really close to eight months. Every single day has been a riot, and every day is full of smiles. I don't think I've ever met a more positive, energetic person. She won't allow me to get down.
We can't wait to get into the book because you don't hold anything back. But I do want to ask one more thing, because I have to say, for anyone who can't see your face right now, who's just listening, you are eminate, like you are radiating love and positivity and joy, and it really is infectious and beautiful to see. So like, truly congratulations. You can tell you are happy?
Yeah, I am really exca.
You are joyful? Can you tell us for people who haven't been keeping up? Because you mentioned you and Lana have known each other for eight months, a lot of folks the last they've heard of you was you were in the middle of a dealing with a three month marriage that you were getting divorced from, and all of a sudden, now you've got beautiful Lana in your life and you're preparing actually to get married for the third time. How did this all happen so quickly?
Ooh, that's really a good question, you know. I like to think that the show's premise worked, probably some divine intervention in there that put the two of us in the right spot at the right time. But I think if you don't give up, you still keep heart, you keep hope you keep humor in your life. Good things happen, you get to the spot where you're supposed to be, and you know, a little praise to above. You know that helps a lot. So that's kind of where I'm.
At with it connect those dots for us the show and how it relates to you now, the divine intervention you talk about that led to you being engaged.
Where did God come into play? I guess?
And getting from proposal and a marriage we all saw to us sitting in a room now with you and your fiance.
So you know, the conversation that Lanna and I have had a couple of times is look at all the instances, consequence, ar mean, coincidences, everything that had to happen in the right sequence for us to have met on you know, March seventh of this year, to meet each other in such a magical way, and it's like you look back and it's like I wouldn't have been where I was at had I not been on the show. She would not have known of me.
Landa reached out to you via Facebook? Is that what happened?
Yeah? Yeah, kind of, you know, after I realized she wasn't a stalker, I took her a little more seriously.
How long did that take? Did it feel?
Stalker is for a while, About a New York minute, not very long.
So she reaches out, you realize that she's the real deal, and how long before you actually met in person? And then you realize she was the one?
So it wasn't very long. It was several days. You know, there's no sense in putting it off, you know, TikTok, TikTok when you're seventy something. And so she reached out. We kind of realized that neither of us were being catfished. And you know, from her perspective, I think it was more than mine. She really wasn't sure I was the
real guy. In fact, to try and prove to her, I went out in my garage and I took a picture of my license plate in my car, and my license plate is GLD batch Bach and I go, I'm really the guy, and she goes, that picture could have come from anywhere.
Who would do that.
So, after we vetted each other it it got to the point where I said, okay, let's meet for dinner, because that's what she threw out. She said, really, the only way you're going to convince me that you're really the Golden Bachelor is to meet me in person. I go, damn, I'm done. Then that's what we're doing.
Wait a minute, she reaches out to you and then you have to prove who you are.
What is that?
Does that make?
Thank you?
Thank you?
But okay, brought that up over all, Right, he's some male based factor driven logic around here.
Yes, that doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, what was that dinner?
Like? Oh man, I you know, I really can't overstate this. I was at the restaurant Vestibule a little bit early waiting for her, and when she showed up, it was like, oh my god, this is it. She's tall, she's elegant, she carried herself well, she looks gorgeous, and you know, the dinner was just amazing.
She showed up.
I was so impressed. I gotta I gotta tell you this. I was so impressed because early on in the dinner, you know, I had told her that I had cancer and she looks at me and she goes, you know, I've already done the research. I know all about it. You're fine, that's not an issue with me. Yeah. She brought a little plaque that said, you miss one hundred
percent of the shots that you don't take. Okay, I mean she's presenting this to me at the dinner, and finally she gave me a condolence card because my father had passed away about six the days prior. So I'm going this woman has really a nice heart. And so she was clear with me. She goes, I have a five date rule, so don't get too excited. And I said, well, can I ask you out for the second date on the first night? And I said, you know, after dinner we go to dairy queen?
Can that count as two days?
She didn't go for it, but we did spend extra time after dinner together, so it was I'm telling you, it was magical. We talked, we realized how much we had in common with our Midwest background and our beliefs and our values and our kids. She has two daughters and a son, and I have two daughters, and we've mixed the families already, and it's hard to believe how well they get along. It's pretty much a laugh riot.
Isn't it incredible when you've had the perspective of things going well and things not going well, going through heartbreak and heartache, and then all of a sudden when things line up, you know in a way you didn't before or you couldn't have.
Oh, that is so true, because you know, I spent all of that time on the show looking for a feeling and trying to force it and trying to create it, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I didn't have to force it. I didn't have to create it. It was just there. And it is like, I mean, I'm sitting here right now, there's a little bit of chill. It's like it's really really good.
Yeah, I know you all can hear to our listeners here. There's sometimes I say this, sometimes I can hear you smiling through the phone, and I'm sure if you all anybody's listening, you can hear him smiling as he's talking. It is very cool to see to your first date were you You mentioned the clock ticking? Right, you understand the clock taking? What am I waiting around for? How do you balance? I guess the clock was ticking while you were doing the show as well. Do you try
to balance? Okay, the clock is ticking, but I also do need to be in a need to be in a hurry and do something because I just was in a hurry and did something, feeling the pressure of the moment and all this. So how did you still at seventy four go, wait, maybe I shouldn't rush it, but this is it and I need to get off the pop.
So on the show, I didn't have any control over the velocity of what was happening. You know, that was going to happen, whether I liked it or not, and those things, the energy and the flow of it. But back in the real world, once I got there, things changed, and you know, I was very despondent after the divorce. I thought, man, after forty three years of success, I did something that was a real failure, you know, and
I felt personally responsible for that failure. I'd failed myself and my own values and what I believed in and so forth. So it took me quite some time to get over that. But once I put my mind back on the right track and became more positive about things, and then you know, Atlanta shows up, then it became timeless.
There was no timeline involved. It was just one thing happened, and then the next thing happened and so forth, and really we didn't even think about the time lapse and the age and all of that.
You said something I know a lot of our listeners and me as well, I would be curious to hear you talked about the divorce, seeing it as a failure. You said it took you a while to get over it. How did you Because a lot of people do feel like, well, I can't give this up because then it will look then I did something wrong.
I failed in this. How did you get past that feeling?
Yeah, I'm not even sure I have a good answer for that. You know, you'd self evaluate, you'd go back and realize, Okay, Fundamentally, the mistake I made going into that show was that I was coming out with my partner. It was never an option for me to come out empty handed, so to speak, that I wouldn't have my partner. That I believed in the vetting that ABC had done with the contestants, and I believed in it everything that
was leading up to that. So I my own mistake, the fundamental mistake, was not believing that I could walk out of there without someone.
Did you feel pressure to do that? Was it personal pressure? Did you feel pressure from the show, from the fans, from the audience that was.
Really a personal pressure. And then you know, there is a chapter in the book that talks about drinking from the fire hydrant, and you know, certainly that is a pressure, but it's something you put on yourself. There's such high expectations going into that environment, and not expectations that someone
is placing on you, but from within. And you know when you fail at those expectations at the end, and you've not done a great job of evaluating your own life and the love life that you've joined with someone else, and I screwed up SoC.
And I've heard had several people describe how you describe the feeling you had either the night before you propose and all these things, and it was what was the Heather was just telling us like you felt empty, even like you're seeing during the proposal. Can you take us back to for a second, because people get cold feet, right, it sounded like and you maybe you tell us, was it beyond just cold feet and being nervous? What did it feel like when you were about to make that
decision and about to propose. Did you just know this ain't right? Or was it just normal I'm a little nervous.
So to set the stage a little bit give us some context. Remember, the night before I proposed to Teresa was a very emotional night because of Leslie, And those were the feelings that were really overriding everything else that I had done the wrong thing, that I hadn't handled
the Leslie's situation properly. And I do remember how emotional that was, and telling myself, Hey, you've got to get your head straight because twelve hours from now you're going to be standing in front of another woman asking her to marry you again. Would you give me an Oh my god, for me too?
Yeah, Okay, that's that's too much. It's like, yeah, oh wow.
So it's really it's tough. It's really really a difficult situation.
How much harder was it to be the Golden Bachelor than you thought it was going to be?
Oh? Man, I never no one's ever asked me that question. It was way harder than I ever thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be unicorns and butterflies and everything great, and man it was it was work. It was work, And I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean that it was a job and you had to throw yourself into it, and you had to give it everything you had, and you had to go buy someone else's rules, You had to give up control of your own life. There was
a lot. There was a lot, and but again I go back to the belief that it was like, all this is going to be worth it. I'm going to find my person at the end of these episodes. I'm going to be in the best place possible. And then that doesn't quite get there.
It didn't.
And then the aftermath, what was the public scrutiny like for you personally?
Oh, it sucked the the you know, part of that failure is I also felt like, in the face of my daughters that I had let them down and all the things as a dad that I had preached, you know, all those principles, and then afterwards the the media scrutiny was so critical and so lops I did. And that was part of the beginning of the thought of the book. It's like, no, you're not seeing the whole picture. You're not seeing this in balance. There was two people that
made this decision, not one. It wasn't like I imposed my will on this decision. We talked about it. We agreed that this is what was best for us, and so yeah, I wanted. I wanted the whole story to be told.
But why did we miss that story in the first place? Is it, really, in your opinion, just the way a couple of tabloids it takes off and you can't stop it. Or was there someone feeding this machine, if you will, that storyline.
That would maybe be for someone else to judge other than me.
Oh no, we got you here, so you.
I think there were some influences that allowed it to go that way. And you know, that's where I felt quite a bit of betrayal. You know, Teresa and I the day before we were interviewed with Juju Chang and announced that we were going to be divorced. We solemnly agree that we're going to look out for each other, and I think that was the noble thing to do on both of our parts. Part of that agreement was that neither of us would put out a unilateral statement.
ABC suggested that would be a very good idea, just stay quiet. Forty eight hours later, Terrace is putting out a public statement. Boy, and I'm going come on, that's not what you know, that's not in our best interest, our mutual best interest.
There you go, mutual?
Yeah, did you get a heads up the other state was coming on?
No? No, no, huh no. So I really thought we had set the stage as best we could to weather the storm, take the blows, and then move on. And then it turned out that wasn't the way it happened.
And as we know, just from being members of the media and certainly having our own firestorm of stories being written about us that weren't true at all, once that train leaves the station, it's almost impossible to stop it. So a lot of folks believe your divorce with Teresa was because of your cancer diagnosis. There's a lot of finger pointing. Can you clear up? And I know you do in the book, but for the listeners right now,
and the details are there and they're fascinating. Why did you and Teresa get divorced?
Well, when real life hit us and on the show, you know, she had mentioned in that last dinner before the Fantasy Suites that when she found the right guy,
she was ready to quit her job. That really changed my thinking about her because before that I had always wondered about that particular factor because I wanted to travel and I wanted to adventure, and I knew that I was getting to the later parts of the fourth quarter of my life, and I wanted to capture a lot of the things that I was never able to do.
And so then after the show was over and we get into our conversations about marriage and what's going to happen, and she continued she would continue to go back to the statement that I want to work for another year now. To a guy twenty five years old, another year may not seem like march to a guy like seventy five. Again, I gotta go TikTok, TikTok, TikTok. What percentage of my remaining years is another year? And so that became a
real point of contention. We worked on where we could possibly live, and she was pretty outspoken about not liking the Midwest and Indiana at all, and quite honestly, I wasn't a big fan of New Jersey. I thought it was a great place to go and spend some time, but I didn't want to be a personal or permanent person for there.
And you're not alone.
We get it's New Jersey. I love you New Jersey, but it's not the first time we've heard.
Something like that.
So that's that was really where it began is that I looked at the things that I had expected not happening, and that ven diagram, that ven diagram has no overlap. Okay, she's either working or she's able to travel, and it didn't happen.
That was just the beginning.
I mean, I just made me think about my dad, who's been talking about retiring for the past ten years. I'm going to retire, and literally it has been a decade and he is not getting any younger. He's seventy eight. Did you think it was possible? Again, we're talking about one year. Some people might hear that and say, well, you can't handle a year if you love her, blah blah blah. Was that the concern? It sounds like that was the jumping off point to many other issues.
It was. It was, quite honestly, And you know, you look at some of the things that you value, and I guess my definition of intimacy and the sharing of feelings and the sharing of planning and the joy of food and all these things were absent. And it's like, so when you crystallize one point and you start thinking about all these other things that don't quite work. To me, I was led to an inevitable conclusion of how that was going to play out.
I was about to ask you to give some advice to other people out there who, look, you had to make a pretty brave choice, one to get married and then to get to think that I can still This isn't what I should be doing, even at this age, and I don't have to settle. There are a lot of folks in their thirties, hell late twenties, forties, been in marriages for a long time, who have this feeling there's nothing else out there for me. I need to stay here. I'm embarrassed to do this. What would you
say to those people? A lot of them we have in this core audience here. I'm not encouraging people to go run out and leave your marriage. I'm not saying that. But there are some people who are in positions like you were, who don't take what many would see as a brave and courageous step to get out of something so that you could have a better, fulfilling, happy life.
What do you say to those people facing that kind of challenge.
So that's a really, really good observation. I think the whole setup that you gave that question is really on point. When you commit yourself to a relationship and Lant is sitting right here and it's like, it's so great to work on that relationship and it's rewarding and fulfilling, but they're not all going to be good days, and there's going to be days where you have to say, I got to work on this. You know, we've found an
area we need to resolve a conflict or friction. And if you've done all that work and you have to do it over and over and over again, all of a sudden, you got to go. Life is supposed to be joyful. I mean, really, I believe that life is supposed to be joyful. We always have to pay our dues, we have to work, we have to do the things that are necessary. But we find joy in our kids, in our relationships and all the things we do, our activities. And if you're not finding joy, you need to change
something thing. And if you look at yourself and you go, you know what, I'm pretty happy with who I am. I don't think I need to do the changing. I think my environment or my circumstances is what needs to be changed. Do the right thing, the right do the courageous thing. And once you decide, don't freaking drag your feet. That's That's one of the things that I feel strongly about is when you know you've made the right decision, follow through on it.
Wow, that is really from a personal standpoint, that is wonderful to hear. We talk a lot about relationships here. We dealt with a lot in our own relationships. Look, we got four divorces between the two of us sitting here, and so to hear that is encouraging and we will take every time we come in here robes these podcasts turn into something else. We have one plan to talk about a book, and all of a sudden we have a therapy session and we walk out of here better
people than we were when we walked in. So personally, thank you, we really appreciate it.
And it's your willingness to share your story and to be vulnerable and to be transparent that really does help other people who are on similar or adjacent paths, who feel shame or feel like they can't do what they want to do, or don't feel empowered to see and hear your story matters.
Oh and we are just getting started with mister Turner. We got so much more to get into with him that you know what, we thought. We'd split this up into two conversations, so please make sure you tune in. We will be posting another part two of our conversation with mister Gary Turner