Personal recipe

None of Newport Beach resident and author Patty Hansen’s experience overseeing licensing for the massive “Chicken Soup for the Soul” publishing empire could have prepared her for the day her husband of 26 years told her he didn’t love her anymore.

It was over a chocolate souffle at her favorite restaurant on the couple’s wedding anniversary.

“I still can’t eat chocolate souffle,” Hansen said Thursday on her quiet estate tucked away behind a security gate on a quiet Newport Beach side street, where she tends to a vegetable garden and a flock of chickens.

Hansen’s marriage to motivational speaker and co-founder of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book franchise, Mark Victor Hansen, ended after nearly 27 years in 2007.

She has parlayed the experience into a new book, “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Divorce and Recovery,” the first in the series to cover divorce. Hansen co-authored the book along with Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield.

“It was a way for me to overcome the experience and it was sort of cathartic,” Hansen said.

In the book, Hansen relates the moment she realized her husband didn’t love her anymore, on their 26th wedding anniversary.

“He didn’t love me; he hadn’t loved me for a long time. I must have known. People change; it’s not his fault,” Hansen wrote in the book, as part of a letter to her children about the divorce.

“I wanted to scream ‘No! This can’t be happening. Not us! Other people, but not us! Not to me — I am a person who believes true love lasts forever,” she wrote.

Hansen’s story is one of several in the book that deal with overcoming divorce.

“One thing about divorce is it lets you discover who you are as a person,” she said. “When you’re married for so long, your identity becomes intertwined with another person. I didn’t just lose my husband — I lost my job and who I really was.”

Hansen sifted through thousands of reader-submitted stories of divorce for the book. Reading through the anecdotes gave her courage to move on with her life, Hansen said.

“It’s sort of like when you’re dreading wearing a bikini to the beach and then you get there and there’s someone who looks way worse than you and then you see someone who looks really good,” Hansen said. “Some had easier divorces. Some had much worse.”

Hansen and her ex-husband are on friendly terms today, and she still works for the “Chicken Soup” franchise on a consultant basis, she said.

“I think they handled the divorce really well,” said Hansen’s adult daughter, Elisabeth Delgesso. “They sat us down and said ‘this is what is going to happen.’ A lot of parents just say on the phone, ‘oh, by the way, we’re getting divorced.’”

Today, Hansen says she would like to write more and perhaps take a trip to Italy — and she’s found love again, she said, sporting an engagement ring from her new fiance.

“Some people don’t want to get married again after divorce, but for me, I’m happiest when I’m loving somebody else,” Hansen said.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: ‘Chicken Soup’ book signing

WHO: Author Patty Hansen

WHERE: Martha’s Bookstore, 308 1/2 Marine Ave.

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Feb. 21

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected].