Ina Garten Almost Left Jeffrey In the Dust

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | September 19, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | September 19, 2024 |

Ina Garten and her husband Jeffrey have long been held up as the model of a perfect partnership. They’ve been married for over 55 years, she wrote a whole book about cooking for him, and he’s always in the background of her cooking shows. But anyone who’s ever been in a relationship knows there’s no such thing as 55 years of wedded bliss.

It turns out Ina almost left Jeffrey in the ’70s when she had just opened her store, Barefoot Contessa, in the Hamptons, and he was going back and forth between New York and D.C., where he worked. Retail is stressful—I speak from experience! The first couple of years of opening a small business are rough, and yet Jeffrey still “expected a wife that would make dinner,” Garten recently told People while discussing her upcoming memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

“There were certain roles that we played, and I found them really annoying,” Garten said. “I felt that if I just hit the pause button, I would get his attention.” Now, if a girlfriend came to me saying she was gonna leave her partner just to get his attention, I’d sit her down and gently tell her to try being single for a while. But this is Ina we’re talking about, so let’s hear her out.

“When Jeffrey came on weekends, he was a distraction,” she explained. Yeah, been there. “I didn’t pay enough attention to him. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone so I could concentrate on the store. Jeffrey was fully formed and living the life he wanted to live. 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.”

At this point, I’m pumping my fist in the air in solidarity. She told Jeffrey she “couldn’t live with him in a traditional ‘man and wife’ relationship” and asked for time apart. She also requested that he go to therapy if he wanted to be with her in the future because, if that were to happen, he needed to be able to “see her as his equal.”

“One hour, that’s all Jeffrey needed,” she said. “He went once for an hour and totally got it… He was that determined to convince me he was serious about making our marriage work.”

Now that’s positive masculinity, folks.