Patrick Dempsey reveals the secret to saving his marriage to wife of 15 years

Patrick Dempsey may be the main attraction as a romantic hopeful in the upcoming "Bridget Jones's Baby," but his personal life has been a bit more rocky than a good rom-com.

The 50-year-old actor and his wife of 15 years, Jillian, announced in January 2015 that they had filed divorce papers and were splitting up. Fans speculated on what went wrong, but internally Dempsey was already working on a plan to save his marriage.

Our marriage was not something I was prepared to let go of," Dempsey told PEOPLE magazine. "I didn't feel like we had done all the work. And we both wanted to do that work. That's where it started."

The idea of ending his marriage scared him he admitted later.

PHOTOS: Patrick and Jillian Dempsey together

"It's always destabilizing when you're potentially breaking up a family or you have a big section of your life that's ending," he tells People magazine. "Everybody has their own path. Jill and I decided it was time to work on our issues and improve. We wanted to be role models for our kids like, okay, if you have differences, you can work them out."

Dempsey and his wife are parents to daughter Talula, 14 and twin sons Darby and Sullivan, 8. And the pair went to marriage counseling in order to try and fix what was broken.

Everybody has their own path," Dempsey said. "Jill and I decided it was time to work on our issues and improve. We wanted to be role models for our kids like, okay, if you have differences, you can work them out."

"You can only do one thing at a time and do it well," he says. "I [learned] to prioritize. Our union has to be the priority. I wasn't prepared to give up on her and she wasn't either. We both wanted to fight for it."

Dempsey left his hit show "Grey's Anatomy" in April 2015 and scaled back the amount of time he spent race car driving. He devoted more time to his family and said over time it was like a "new beginning."

"You've got to keep at it," he says. "You've got to communicate, and stay open and not get lazy. And not give up. And lots of sex!"