There are some couples one just looks up to as the definition of relationship goals. Ina and Jeffrey Garten are one of them. These two have been married for 53 years and seem to have it all figured out. Ina shared some of their secrets on an upcoming appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show.
Ina’s episode will air on November 21, 2022, but People magazine is previewing the episode now. Ina, The Barefoot Contessa herself, has always been open about her relationship with Jeffrey and shares one of their tricks to keeping the spark in their relationship: racy text messages.
“Is it true that he sends you love texts,” Drew asked Ina. Ina revealed it was true but there were sometimes some complications with them. “Sometimes they go astray,” Ina disclosed.
Ina told a very relatable story about sending one of these love text messages to the wrong person. This text, unfortunately, was also a little racy but everyone involved had a pretty good sense of humor about it.
“My dear friend, who’s also my publicist, he sent a text to her, and he meant it for me, and he said, ‘You're gonna be delicious tonight,’ and it went to her,” Garten recalled. “She was like, ‘Woah.’ She sent back, ‘I don't think this was meant for me.’”
Ina first met Jeffrey while visiting her older brother at Dartmouth College in 1963. She was just 15 years old at the time. Jeffery spotted her from a window and thought she was beautiful. He had to do something about it and meet her.
Jeffrey sent her a love letter to introduce himself. "He saw me on the street and then sent me a letter with a photograph of himself in it. I just remember running through the house and going, 'Mom, Mom, you've got to see this picture of this guy. He's so cute,'" recalls Ina.
Their first date could have been disastrous when Ina got carded and was underage. The couple instead rebounded and went to a coffee shop, which was a good indicator that there was something special going on. The rest, as they say, is history. Ina and Jeffrey married when they were 20 and 22 years old in 1968.
Jeffrey and Ina have always been incredibly supportive of each other’s ambitions and ventures. Ina is now best known now as The Barefoot Contessa with her own product line, cooking show, and cookbooks. Before all that, she worked in the White House as a budget analyst.
Jeffrey has an impressive resume in his own right as well. He is an economist, author, businessman, professor, and former government official. He is a dean emeritus at the Yale School of Management. From 1993 to 1995, he served as the Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade in the Clinton administration. He also worked as the managing director for the Blackstone Group and Lehman Brothers.
Jeffrey and Ina have been able to pursue their impressive careers and maintain their relationship with the help of letters, text messages, and technology. When Jeffrey served in the Army, they wrote letters every day. When Jeffrey was in Japan with Lehman Brothers in the 1980s, Jeffrey would fax her notes he wrote during the day. “He used to write me notes all day, and he would fax them to me at night so when I woke up in the morning, I had them,” Ina said.
With modern technology, the couple now relies on text messages. “When we’re not together, I’ll send her five or six texts per day. I love looking at her schedule. I can envision where she is and what she’s doing, and it doesn’t feel like we’re apart. If I could be with her seven days a week, 24 hours a day, that would be my ideal,” Jeffrey stated. As adorable as this is, according to Ina, Jeffrey just needs to double-check he is sending them to the right person.
