Ina Garten and her husband Jeffrey have been married for more than 50 years, but the happily married couple has still encountered issues that caused them to temporarily separate and consider divorce. In her new memoir, which People has published excerpts of, Ina explained the issues that nearly led to a divorce in the 1970s. At the time, Ina was focused on her career: running a specialty food store called Barefoot Contessa.
Running Barefoot Contessa "shattered our traditional roles," Ina wrote in her memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. However, her husband, Jeffrey, still expected a more traditional wife, she explained to People.
Though Ina has made a career of cooking, it is exactly that — a career. "While I was still cooking, cleaning, shopping, managing at the store, I was doing it as a businesswoman, not a wife," she wrote in her memoir, per People. "My responsibilities made it impossible for me to even think about anything else."
She doesn't blame Jeffrey for the issues in their marriage at the time, but divorce felt like the only option to her at one point. She craved a sense of "freedom" that she didn't have within her marriage.
"Jeffrey was fully formed and living the life he wanted to live," Ina explained in her memoir. "I wasn’t, and I wouldn’t be able to figure out who I was or what I wanted unless I was on my own. I needed that freedom."
She described asking Jeffrey for some time apart as "the hardest thing I ever did." She "didn’t want to shock — or hurt — him," she wrote, and she still loved him.
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"I told him that I needed to be on my own. I didn’t say whether it was for now … or forever," she wrote, per People. "In true Jeffrey form, he said, 'If you feel like you need to be on your own, you need to do it.'"
Even after being separated for some time, Ina wasn't completely sure about her marriage. The traditional gender roles and expectations in her relationship weren't working for her. "Jeffrey hadn’t done anything wrong," Ina wrote. "He was just doing what every man before him had done."
"I just couldn’t live with him in a traditional 'man and wife' relationship," Ina explained, adding that "we were living in a new era, and that behavior wasn’t okay with me anymore."
Her husband wanted to make their relationship work, and asked Ina if there was anything he could do. She suggested going to therapy.
The fact that Jeffrey was willing to go to therapy and work on the issues that were bothering Ina was significant to her. It showed that he cared and that he was committed to being a better partner to her.
"He was that determined to convince me he was serious about making our marriage work," she wrote.
She's glad she had the courage to ask for a separation and then encourage her husband to see a therapist because it ultimately changed their relationship for the better, she told People.
