An Ina Garten divorce revelation? Nobody noticed that coming!
From Britney Spears’ guide to Prince Harry’s royal tell-all, the world’s most well-known figures have loads to say.
The Barefoot Contessa has been a family identify for many years. And Ina’s marriage to Jeffrey Garten has lasted even longer.
When Ina confesses that she “took a baseball bat” to their marital roles and weighed separation vs divorce, followers are paying consideration. What went fallacious?


When did Ina Garten ponder a divorce?
Today, Ina Garten and longtime husband Jeffrey Garten are nonetheless very a lot a pair. However she did think about a divorce.
In her new memoir, Be Prepared When The Luck Occurs, the enduring Ina Garten particulars how she and Jeffrey separated — and almost divorced.
This was again within the Nineteen Seventies. Ina was already busy operating the Barefoot Contessa. This specialty meals retailer would someday catapult her into turning into a family identify.


As Individuals explains of their preview of Ina Garten’s new memoir, the couple’s near-divorce within the Nineteen Seventies occurred when she was busy as knowledgeable.
Ina recalled that Jeffrey “anticipated a spouse that may make dinner” throughout these years.
“There have been sure roles that we performed, and I discovered them actually annoying,” she expressed. “I felt that if I simply hit the pause button, I might get his consideration.”
Ina Garten ‘took a baseball bat’ to her marriage’s conventional roles
Each Ina and Jeffrey Garten had labored on the White Home. Nonetheless, she had stop her DC job to run the Barefoot Contessa. Jeffrey stayed in DC in the course of the week, coming residence to the Hamptons on weekends.
“Once I purchased Barefoot Contessa, I shattered our conventional roles – took a baseball bat to them and left them in items,” she writes in her memoir. “Whereas I used to be nonetheless cooking, cleansing, purchasing, managing on the retailer, I used to be doing it as a businesswoman, not a spouse.”
Ina Garten defined: “My obligations made it inconceivable for me to even take into consideration anything. There was no expectation about who obtained residence from work first and what they need to do, as a result of I by no means obtained residence from work!”


“When Jeffrey got here on weekends, he was a distraction. I didn’t pay sufficient consideration to him,” Ina Garten describes in her memoir. “I simply wished everybody to go away me alone so I might consider the shop.”
Her guide particulars: “Jeffrey was absolutely shaped and residing the life he wished to dwell.”
Ina then bluntly writes: “I wasn’t, and I wouldn’t have the ability to determine who I used to be or what I wished except I used to be alone. I wanted that freedom.”


That is how the separation got here to be
“I considered it loads, and at my lowest level, I questioned if the one reply could be to break up,” Ina Garten confesses within the guide. “I liked Jeffrey and didn’t need to shock — or damage — him, so I’d begin by suggesting we pause for a separation.”
She expresses: “It was the toughest factor I ever did. I instructed him that I wanted to be alone. I didn’t say whether or not it was for now … or ceaselessly. In true Jeffrey kind, he mentioned, ‘When you really feel like you might want to be by yourself, you might want to do it.’”
Ina Garten writes: “He packed his bag and went residence to Washington with no plan to return again. I buried my feelings and threw myself into my work.”
Finally, the 2 simply sat down to speak. “I simply couldn’t dwell with him in a conventional ‘man and spouse’ relationship. Jeffrey hadn’t completed something fallacious. He was simply doing what each man earlier than him had completed. However we had been residing in a brand new period, and that conduct wasn’t okay with me anymore. I had modified.”
She mentioned that, in the event that they had been to remain collectively, he’d want to sit down down with a {couples} therapist. He did. And, Ina praises, it took him “one hour” to grasp.
That could be a highly effective story. And, maybe, a useful life lesson for anybody who thinks that {couples} counseling is a waste of time. One session added, what, half a century to Ina Garten’s marriage. Half a century and counting.
Additionally? It’s an excellent signal that patriarchal brainrot about gender roles and submissive wives has a better probability of ending a wedding than prolonging it.