Peter Facinelli Reveals Why He Filed For Divorce From Jennie Garth As Exes Reflect On Split

Garth invited her ex-husband on for the latest episode of her I Choose Me podcast, where the pair discussed getting together at a young age.

“I was a baby having a baby,” Facinelli — who shares daughters Luca, 26, Lola, 21, and Fiona, 17, with Garth — said of being 21 when the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum got pregnant for the first time. “Like, no, how did [I do] that? I pray every day, I’m like, ‘Please, [I hope our daughters] don’t have a baby because you need had a little bit of wisdom and a little bit of knowledge at that age.'”

He continued, “At 21, [Jennie], you were a year older [and] you’ve been working in the business since you were 15. I literally just landed in L.A. … and six months later, I was having a baby. So you know, that wasn’t planned, obviously.”

The pair would eventually marry in 2001 after welcoming their first daughter, and finalize their divorce 12 years later in 2013 — a move that Facinelli said wound up strengthening their family.

“On one hand, they missed out on that idyllic family, my parents are still married kind of thing,” Garth, 52, said. “But on the other hand, they gained so much more emotional depth and so much more strength, and so many other things from experiencing the way it happened with us.”

It also allowed Facinelli, 50, to get “in touch with” his own identity, which he felt he “hadn’t developed” because of how young he was when the pair got together, comparing the union to an “arranged marriage.”

“I felt a lot of it was I was in this marriage and it felt to me a little bit like an arranged marriage,” the Twilight star said. “Like, I loved you, and we had this beautiful family, from the outside, but I hadn’t developed who I was. I don’t even know how you could love me because I didn’t know me.”

He added, “I didn’t know who I was and so I needed to figure that out. I didn’t feel like I had the space to do that within the marriage.”

Of his decision to file for divorce, he said, “I was very conflicted. It wasn’t an easy decision by any means.” He also added that if they didn’t have kids, he doesn’t think he would have stayed with Garth as long — “because I would have had the freedom to go, ‘OK, I need to be able to figure out who I am.'”

While Facinelli said he “felt gutted to break up family apart,” ultimately he believes it was the “right decision.”

After divorcing, Garth said the duo didn’t always have the best co-parenting relationship, noting that there was a lot of hurt left following their split.

“I did my best,” she told Facinelli, explaining that she initially harbored a lot pain over their breakup, “but sometimes my best wasn’t the best.”

These days, the pair have found their footing, as both co-parents and friends.

“If you and I could work together and they saw that there was still love there, they could walk away going, ‘Mom and dad are still in each in our corners,'” Facinelli explained. “

“We had a very good run,” the Can’t Hardly Wait actor added of their marriage. “A lot of times it wasn’t easy for either of us. Looking back on it, I felt like we were two parents that cared a lot, and whatever friction came up was because we really did care about the about our children.”

They’ve also both moved on, with Facinelli welcoming 21-month-old son Jack with fiancée. Lily Anne Harrison, and Garth marrying fellow actor, Dave Abrams in 2015.