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Jennie Garth has revealed the brutal message from a marriage therapist that finally made her realize her relationship to Peter Facinelli was over.
The couple were married from 2001 to 2013 but it took a single session with a counselor to finally convince Garth the marriage had run its course.
Recalling the moment on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, Garth, 54, said they agreed to go to a marriage counseling 'expert' in Phoenix, Arizona who asked her why she loved a man who didn't reciprocate the feelings.
It's a question that has stayed with her today and one that completely 'gutted' her.
'We sat down and honestly two minutes into it she said, "Jenny, why would you want to love someone when they don't love you? Why would you love someone when they don't love you?
'Why would you love someone who doesn't love you? Like, it's echoing, I'll never forget it... That just gutted me. And I was like, "Yeah. No s**t. Give up. It's time."'
Jennie Garth has described the brutal message from a marriage therapist that finally made her realize her relationship with Peter Facinelli was over
Garth said was 'gutted' after their marriage counselor asked her why she was loving someone who did not reciprocate her feelings
Garth left the office emotional only to find Facinelli and the therapist had jumped into a car to look for her.
'He's in the passenger seat,' she said. 'And I'm talking, walking, angry, crying, all the things, just like out of my mind. They are just like kind of keeping up with me in the car and saying, "Get in the car, you know, let's let us take you to a hotel. Jen, come on, get in the car." Like a friend. And I was like, why would I get in your car? What, what, no!
'But somehow they got me in the car. And then they yeah took me to a hotel, took us to a hotel. He checked in separately and I was like well I guess I'll check in and that was the parting moment.'
Once there, she started mixing mini bottles of alcohol with 'medication I've been given for flying purposes' to 'stop this pain.'
She awoke in a hospital and realized she 'could have died' in the hotel room had a friend not intervened.
'I blacked out. I passed out on the floor and I had my best friend on the phone with me, I think while that was happening. So she knew I was in danger,' she said.
When she woke up, Garth said the memory of what occurred flooded back to her.
'I'm looking at my assistant and whiteness and doctors and everything's very fuzzy. It all came back to me and all I wanted to do was kill the pain some more.'
Garth and Facinelli were married from 2001 to 2013 and had three daughters together; pictured 1998
Garth left the office emotional only to find Facinelli and the therapist had jumped into a car to look for her
Shepard noted she mentioned in her book still feeling ashamed writing about this particular experience. 'It feels like it still shames you a little bit to talk about it,' he said.
'I think this shame really came from letting the girls down and from being a bad mom by letting myself go to that place,' she said. 'I could have died in that hotel room.'
Garth ultimately checked into the rehab center The Canyon, a place where she got sober and learned how to stop self-medicating.
Jennie said she started taking benzodiazepines after they split.
'That started when we separated. I just didn't know how to cope with all the feelings and all the responsibility that I suddenly felt,' she said.
Garth, pictured Monday outside ABC studios, is releasing her memoir I Choose Me on April 14
Garth, pictured Monday, lays bare the pain of her divorce in her memoir
'I've always supported myself, even in my marriage, we split everything, it was never a "how am I going to survive?" kind of thing. It's just, I was broken. I didn't know how to be alone and deal with it all.'
They were planning on filming a reality show in which they were uprooted to a ranch but by the time production began, they were no longer together.
'I'm drinking wine at night and taking medication,' she said. 'It was very embarrassing and then I felt like such an a**hole for being embarrassed, like that's ego.
'I don't even know who that was. I have no idea that era of my life. I just remember being prodded out of bed. I would take the girls to school, I would go back to bed and then the crew would show up and I would be like, "I can't get up."
'And then they would be like, talk me up, and get me out and I would end up doing it just because that's what you do.'
The actress rose to fame playing Kelly Taylor in Beverly Hills, 90210
But the show ended up being a positive experience for her daughters.
'It was very surreal. It was very out of body, but then there were moments of levity, which helped me feel better about the girls' experience, because they were getting distracted by the crew and the fun people and they would be doing fun things that they created for the show,' she said.
For a moment, life felt normal when the film crew were present.
'And I was like, this feels good. Everyone's laughing and it feels normal for this moment. And then they would leave and the reality would be like, oh. This is what's normal.'
She also recalled the moment he asked for a divorce: 'My remembrance is that we went into an RV and the kids were outside playing on a farm 'cause it was safe and they were running free like kids should be. And that's where he told me that he wanted us to get a divorce.'
'He said, "Jen, someday you'll thank me for this." And that infuriated me. That pissed me off,' she said.
Garth's memoir, I Choose Me, will be released on April 14.
