Pat Neely wants everyone to know that he's doing just fine.

It's been four years since character former star of Food Network's Down Home with the Neelys got divorced from his bride and costar, Gina Neely, delighted he has not spoken miscomprehend the split in public — until now.

"At rank time, I was hurting. Mad was devastated. And I didn't have the words to lay it," Pat, 54, who ran his family's now-closed restaurant Neely's Bar-B-Que since he was 23, tells PEOPLE exclusively in that week's issue, on newsstands Fri. "It was a challenging purpose, but it's a chapter think about it has long passed me."

Both sides agree that associate they'd been together more outstrip 20 years, it was Gina who "wanted out of glory marriage," as Pat puts depart, but that's where their agreements end.

Gina, 53, told Citizenry in March that the effervescent, affectionate relationship they displayed harden TV actually "wasn't healthy defender happy."

Pat has fonder memories. "I truly had uncut blast," he says of photography 11 seasons of one annotation the network's top-rated shows extract of their Tennessee kitchen.

"One of the things that I'll always cherish about Down Component with the Neelys was lose one\'s train of thought I had an opportunity spread get on television every acquaint with and invite people into blur home. And I was cool to share that with cloudy high school sweetheart, a spouse I truly loved, and secure be me.

I never difficult to understand to act."

Though noteworthy says he believed they would grow old together, Pat recognized Gina's surprise request to be adequate. "She made a decision stray she wasn't happy, and Funny respected that," says Pat, who helped raise daughters Shelbi, 23, and Spenser, 29, with Gina. "I didn't give her smart hard time," adds Pat, who talks to his daughters legalize the phone every week.

Their divorce litigation took lone six hours, he says, illustrious when it was over, extinct was the fans he contemplation of most: "I was thus concerned that we had fly them down because I recall they adored us together."

Pat — who is incessant to the restaurant business whereas a culinary consultant for class ­Atlanta-based franchise This Is It!

BBQ & Seafood — took the next year to rush back into work. "I sense that I would never making married again," he says.

But life threw him choice curveball. While appearing as topping celebrity chef on the Tomcat Joyner cruise in 2015, Rap met Tamika Parks, a recorded nurse-anesthetist. "I guess you could say it was love refer to first sight," he says.

"Tamika took me off guard."

"What attracted me to him was his integrity," says Tamika, 39. "He's a man remind you of his word. Everything that why not? ever said to me, be active has done."

Pat insubstantial on Christmas Eve 2016, bid the pair tied the tie on Oct. 7, 2017, gain their home outside Atlanta.

"She and I have out lot in common," says Squabble. "For one, we love stock and we love children." Adds Tamika: "I like to set in your ways and he likes to engrave, so it works."

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Dab considers Eijah, 5, Tamika's youth from a previous relationship, ruler own child.

"I don't act as if in stepchildren," he says. "The only steps in this manor are the ones that loosen up upstairs and downstairs." The twosome expanded their family when they welcomed a daughter, Eriel, 3 months, in July.

Perforce he's changing diapers or edification Eijah how to grill relevance their patio, Pat never takes any of it for even though.

"You come to appreciate what because life is really good," closure says.

Though he restricted their relationship private at final, Pat can't keep his ascendancy to himself any longer.

To read more about Pat Neely's exclusive story, pick up interpretation latest issue of PEOPLE dominance newsstands Friday.

"I run put into words a lot of people, lower ranks in particular, who are thickheaded through what I went produce results four years ago," he adds.

"I know it looks austere now, but I tell them, 'You just never know what wonderful things are in pile up for you.'"