The Golden Bachelor alum Faith Martin has explained how her dynamic with her ex, Gerry Turner, and close friend, Theresa Nist, has been "perplexing" and a little "hard" to deal with.
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Faith, whom Gerry had eliminated in third place after hometown dates on The Golden Bachelor, just attended Gerry and Theresa's wedding, which aired as a two-hour The Golden Wedding special on January 4 on ABC.
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Although Gerry had shattered Faith's heart on The Golden Bachelor, the 60-year-old high school teacher from Benton City, WA, managed to put on a good face and support Gerry and Theresa on their wedding day.
"I'm good. I'm surprisingly better than I thought," Faith told Trista Rehn on a recent episode of "The Ben and Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast.
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Faith insisted she feels "great" and added, "I'm loving this whole adventure/opportunity to just be part of something so beautiful."
Faith also said The Golden Wedding was "amazing" and "so fun," especially because she got to "connect with people in Bachelor Nation" and see Gerry and Theresa "so happy" firsthand.
"They just walked in [the] morning [after the wedding] and they were just settling in. They're finally together, and it was beautiful. It's a little bit hard still, but yeah," Faith shared.
When Trista guessed that Faith still has feelings for Gerry because feelings of love can't just be shut off, Faith replied, "You know, it's perplexing to me."
Faith explained, "Right from the get go, Gerry and Theresa and I would talk on the phone -- when it was out that they were together -- and I knew ahead of time. I love them both, and Theresa, Gerry and I are very transparent with our feelings," Faith explained.
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"Theresa would be like, 'He loves you so much,' and I'd be like, 'I love him too! And I love you! And we're going to be friends for life, right?!' And they're like, 'Yes.' So we check in with each other all the time."
Even though her relationship with the couple is healthy, Faith confessed she's still healing from her televised breakup with Gerry.
"I would be still so excited and so happy for them, and then all of a sudden, I would have to go into the bathroom and cry for a little bit," Faith admitted.
"And then I would come back out and I would call Theresa, or text her, and I'd say, 'Tell me how happy you are and how great this is going to be, because then my heart will heal.'"
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Faith elaborated, "Every time I talk to her or him and hear about their hope for the future, my heart got more and more healed. But, you know, it's still a little bit hard because I was so in love with him."
Faith is apparently worried that she'll never find another man like Gerry.
"I don't know if I would ever find those qualities in another man," she lamented. "So I felt the loss, for sure. But I am super excited for them both, for sure."
Faith also remains optimistic and "hopeful" for the future, now that she knows she's capable of loving a man to the fullest.
"I think that you go all in with your heart [on this show]. The immediate reaction [to being hurt] is, 'Okay, I'm done [dating]. I'm just going to be done. This didn't work and I'm just going to be done,'" Faith said.
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But Faith said that once she really thought things through and let the whole Golden Bachelor experience sink in, she realized that competing for Gerry allowed her "to feel again" and to know that she has a heart "that wasn't dead inside."
Faith added, "And [the fact I could] I actually could muster up those feelings... made me think, 'I am still alive,' and that I just need to look at [dating again] differently."
"It takes a little prodding every now and then, like I tell myself, 'Yes, I'm going to get back out there and start trying to date with purpose and find my person,'" she noted.
Faith told Trista that while she hasn't gone on a date yet, she has "flirted a little" and has someone in mind that she'd love to meet up with.
Faith wouldn't spill the tea or reveal this mystery man's identity, but she hinted it "may" be someone Bachelor Nation knows.
Faith was admittedly "numb" after Gerry broke up with her and she left the show.
Faith even began to question if her relationship with Gerry was ever real.
Faith told producers in her final words on The Golden Bachelor, "I feel like we connected on a level where I I was ready to marry the dude. I wanted so much more for me and I wanted so much more for my kids, for them to see me have that. Maybe it's just not in the cards for me."
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And on The Women Tell All, Faith and Gerry had, arguably, the most emotional and heart-wrenching reunion that's ever aired on The Bachelor franchise.
Faith and Gerry embraced and cried in each other's arms for nearly 30 seconds, and Gerry apparently felt horrible for what he had said during her hometown date.
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"You want to know what makes me feel the worst?" Gerry asked Faith. "I promised your family something, and I broke that promise. That's so awful. That's awful."
Faith assured Gerry that it was "okay," but then he continued, "I promised them that I would protect your heart and I didn't do that."
"I know," Faith replied. "[But] I don't feel like you deceived me. I don't feel like you purposely broke my heart in any way, shape or form."
Gerry's Final 2 bachelorettes on The Golden Bachelor were Leslie Fhima and Theresa Nist, and he ultimately proposed marriage to Theresa during the finale, which filmed in Costa Rica.
Faith, however, apparently thought she was the best person for Gerry and would've made him happy -- at least that's how she felt in November.
"You could've walked off with me right then [after my hometown] and I'd have been yours for the rest of your life," Faith told The Golden Bachelor star on The Women Tell All.
"I felt that safe, and I never felt that way... I hope someday I can feel that again, but I thank you for it."
Gerry insisted his love for Faith was genuine in those moments but when he had three women left -- who are all "wonderful beyond description" -- he had to find out which one was "right" for him.
"It's just that one was right," Gerry explained.
"I get that. I totally get that. But in my heart, it still hurts because it's a loss. I feel such a loss," Faith concluded.
Despite having to pick up the pieces of her broken heart, Faith said her family is "really glad" that she went on the televised journey to find love.
"I've done a lot of crying. They've had to listen to that," Faith said on the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast late last year.
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"And they've kind of gone through it with me because they, you know, fell in love with Gerry a little bit too. So it's hard on them... [But] I think that they've realized we all learned a lot... I think they can see it really has made kind of a life-changing effect for me."
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