Ina Garten's One-Time Separation From Jeffrey Has Us Shook

Ina Garten's fans are well aware how in love Garten and her husband, Jeffrey, are. Jeffrey has made his fair share of appearances on Garten's show "Barefoot Contessa" and on her social media — and they always appear very happy together. Plus, let's not forget about the entire cookbook that Garten wrote for her husband, "Cooking for Jeffrey."

With all this in mind, no one was prepared for the news that Garten and Jeffrey were once separated. As reported by People, in her upcoming memoir "Be Ready When the Luck Happens," Garten reveals that she was unhappy in her marriage for some time, mostly due to the constraints of traditional gender roles, leading to some time apart in the '70s.

Garten writes in her memoir, "When I bought Barefoot Contessa [the specialty food store], I shattered our traditional roles." She relocated from D.C. to the Hamptons, and the business took up all of her time — even on the weekends when Jeffrey would commute up to New York to visit her. She also admits that "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." 

So, she asked him for a separation. "It was the hardest thing I ever did. I told him that I needed to be on my own. I didn't say whether it was for now ... or forever. In true Jeffrey form, he said, 'If you feel like you need to be on your own, you need to do it.'"

After Jeffrey agreed to the separation, he remained in Washington D.C. — no longer visiting on weekends — and Garten threw all of her focus into running the shop in the Hamptons. They reconnected when Barefoot Contessa was closed for wintertime — and Jeffrey immediately asked what he could do to fix their marriage. Garten's solution? Therapy. 

She writes in her memoir that she needed him to understand that they wouldn't have "a traditional 'man and wife' relationship." She continues, "We were living in a new era, and that behavior wasn't okay with me anymore." Jeffrey immediately agreed to therapy and Garten says he came back a changed man — after just one session. She writes, "He was that determined to convince me he was serious about making our marriage work." From there, they rebuilt their marriage as "equals." 

Thankfully, the separation was, overall, short-lived and the couple have since remained together for over 50 years. And as she told Today in an interview, Garten now considers Jeffrey to be the "secret ingredient" to her happy life. Garten's memoir, "Be Ready When the Luck Happens," comes out on October 1.