Gary soon married Abby, as she secretly started her own company, Apolune. After his marriage to Abby, Gary became the stepfather to Abby's children, Olivia and Brian, from Abby's first marriage to Jeff Cunningham. Gary then met Cathy Geary, who looked a lot like Ciji and began a new friendship with her and had her dress and sing like Ciji too. He also later had a relationship with Cathy. During a moment of weakness, Gary had a one night stand with his ex-wife, Val, and she became pregnant with twins, but Gary assumed that Val's fiancé and future husband, Ben Gibson, was the father. Val eventually named her twin babies as Bobby and Betsy in the 1985–86 season, after Gary's late brother Bobby and Ben Gibson's mother Betsy. Gary's marriage to Abby eventually broke down, and he got engaged to Jill Bennett, who later tried to kill Val. Gary and Val eventually reunited again, 8 years after their second divorce. Gary and Val also lived together with their children, Bobby and Betsy, for the first time, going on to marry each other for the third time in 1991 (Gary's fourth marriage, and Valene's fifth). In 1992, after Val was kidnapped by mafia gangsters in Florida and supposedly killed in a car crash after Gary had tracked her down, a grieving Gary entered into a short-term relationship with a much younger, Kate Whittaker, as she supported him and his children through their grief of losing Val. However, in the 2-part finale to Season 14 in 1993, Val turned up alive, revealing that she was never in the car that she was presumed to have died in. Gary was extremely happy at his wife still being alive, and they got back together.