At some point, Aina Garten needed to add an element to her marriage to make it work.
The Food Network star, 76, was married to her husband, Jeffrey Garten, for 56 years but once separated and nearly divorced in the '70s, which she details in her upcoming memoir, “When Luck Strikes.” people Tuesday.
While Aina worked overtime to run the specialty food store, Barefoot Contessa, that would later catapult her to stardom, Jeffrey, 77, “expected his wife to cook him dinner,” he writes in the excerpt.
“Some of the characters we played were really annoying,” the Food Network host continued, “and I felt like if I hit the pause button, that would get his attention.”
Ina decided to quit her job at the White House, where she worked with Jeffrey, to run the Barefoot Contessa full time, while Jeffrey remained in Washington, DC, and spent weekends visiting the Hamptons.
Ina acknowledged how things have changed since then.
“When I bought the Barefoot Contessa, I shattered our traditional roles, smashed them with a baseball bat and smashed them to pieces,” the chef writes in her memoir (out October 1). “While cooking, cleaning, shopping and managing the store, I was doing it not as a wife, but as a businesswoman. My responsibilities prevented me from thinking about anything else. No one knew who would be the first to get home from work and what to do, because I was never home from work!”
Despite Jeffrey's efforts to visit on the weekends, Ina felt she needed to figure out what she needed for herself.
“When Jeffrey came over on the weekends, he would get in the way,” she continued. “I wasn't giving him enough attention. I just wanted people to leave me alone so I could focus on the store. Jeffrey was fully mature and living the life he wanted. I wasn't. I didn't know who I was or what I wanted until I was alone. I needed that freedom.”
The entrepreneur considered divorce but ultimately decided to seek separation from Jeffrey.
“I thought about it a lot and, at my worst, wondered if the only answer was divorce,” she wrote. “Because I loved Jeffrey and didn't want to shock or hurt him, I suggested we start by separating.”
“It was the hardest thing I've ever done. I told him I needed to be on my own. I didn't say whether that meant now or forever. Jeffrey, in true Jeffrey style, said, 'If you feel you need to be on your own, then do so.' He packed his bags and returned to his home in Washington with no plans to come back. I suppressed my emotions and threw myself into work.”
After Barefoot Contessa went on winter hiatus, Ina returned to Washington DC.
“Jeffrey told me [train] “We went to the station, and when we got home we sat together on the steps outside,” Ina recalls in the book. “We were hesitant to go in because we were caught between two worlds: the world of when we were Ina and Jeffrey, and the sad world of now. A painful limbo.”
The former White House nuclear policy analyst recalled a conversation that took place just before Jeffrey left for a six-week business trip.
“'What can I do to change your mind?' he asked hopefully, but I doubted our relationship would work and didn't think we might be heading for divorce. I just couldn't live with him in a traditional 'couple' relationship. Jeffrey hadn't done anything wrong; he was just doing what every man before him had done. But we live in a new age and that kind of behavior was no longer acceptable to me. I had changed.”
Ina told him, now a professor at Yale University, that if they wanted to reconcile he needed to see a therapist, hoping that a professional could help him see their relationship as equal partners.
“All Jeffrey needed was an hour,” Ina recalls. “I just had to go for an hour and get it completely.”
“Jeffrey's willingness to see a therapist outweighed anything that might have happened during the sessions,” she writes in When Good Fortune Strikes.
“He was that determined to convince me that our marriage was going to work.”
She continues in her memoir, “Six weeks have passed. We've talked, we've listened, and most importantly, we've listened to each other when we expressed our concerns. Going forward, we will be able to become equal people who care about each other. It won't happen overnight, but if we work toward the same goal, together we can make a difference.”
After all, the longtime couple, who began dating in 1965, have come through that time stronger than ever.
“I'm so glad I did,” she says. “As crazy as it was and as dangerous as it was, if I hadn't done it, we wouldn't have the relationship we have now.”
“It changed him,” she adds, “but it changed me too.”
If you ask Jeffrey, the businessman couldn't be happier with where he and his wife are right now.
“She's the center of my life,” he enthused. 60 min In 2023. “She's really the source of so much fun. And she's the heart of the house. That's what she is to me.”
