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Ina Garten is opening up about the period of time in the 1970s when she and her husband Jeffrey Garten separated in what she described as the "hardest thing I ever did."
The beloved Food Network star is getting ready to release her new memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, that sheds light onto some of the challenges she has faced throughout her life, including the time when she and her husband were separated so she could figure out who she was, per People.
"There were certain roles that we played, and I found them really annoying," she said. "I felt that if I just hit the pause button, I would get his attention."
Ina said she "shattered our traditional roles" when she purchased and began running the Barefoot Contessa specialty food store in the '70s, because while her husband, who split time between the Hamptons and Washington DC for work, "expected a wife that would make dinner," she was fully in the role of "businesswoman."
"My responsibilities made it impossible for me to even think about anything else. There was no expectation about who got home from work first and what they should do, because I never got home from work," she said, adding, "When Jeffrey came on weekends, he was a distraction. 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."
This realization led her to consider asking for a divorce, but instead she approached her husband about a separation, even though she still loved him.
"It was the hardest thing I ever did," she said. "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.' He packed his bag and went home to Washington with no plan to come back. I buried my emotions and threw myself into my work."
After some time apart, they reunited in a "painful limbo" before Jeffrey asked what he could do to "change [her] mind." Ina said she knew that he "hadn't done anything wrong" and was "just doing what every man before him had done," but she was no longer accepting of that behavior. She asked him to visit a therapist to help him see her as an equal partner, which he was more than willing to do and was a move that ended up helping him "totally [get] it."
"Six weeks passed. We talked, we listened, and more important, we heard each other when we aired our concerns. Moving forward, we could be equals who took care of each other. It wouldn't happen overnight, but if we worked toward the same goal, we could change things together," she said, adding that she is grateful she asked for that time apart, even if if was dangerous. "I think how crazy that was and how dangerous it was, but we wouldn't have the relationship we have now if I hadn't done it."
Be Ready When the Luck Happens comes out October 1.