Ina Garten Reveals Crucial Changes She & Husband Jeffrey Have Made in Their Marriage
What To Know
- Ina Garten appeared on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast on November 25.
- The Barefoot Contessa star reflected on her 60-year marriage to Jeffrey Garten and revealed what he’s taught her.
- She reflected on how they’ve changed since the early days of their marriage.
Ina Garten has made it no secret that she cherishes her husband, Jeffrey Garten. The Barefoot Contessa star made an appearance on the November 25 edition of the Good Hang podcast, during which host Amy Poehler remarked that Ina and her husband have a deep respect for each other.
The 77-year-old agreed, pointing out that they have a different life than they expected to. After nearly 60 years of marriage, Ina and Jeffrey have found the right ingredients for maintaining a healthy marriage.
“We don’t have kids, we don’t have cats and dogs, we don’t have gerbils,” she explained. “It’s just the two of us, and if we’re trying to figure out what to do… This is what Jeffrey taught me: Let’s figure out how we can both do what we want to do. It’s not about whether we get to do what you want to do or I want to do.”
Ina added that their mindset extends to everything, whether it be big things like their careers or small ones like what movie they watch. “I love that about him,” she gushed. “He’s so respectful, and it’s pretty hard not to return that.”
When Poehler added that it can be easy to forget to be respectful and tender with someone you’re so familiar with. “It’s just, I don’t take it for granted ever,” Ina noted.
She went on to explain how they’ve changed since they got married in their twenties. “I think when we were married at 20, we each had roles. He was the husband, I was the wife. We both had jobs. He would go to the state department, I worked the White House, and it was assumed that I would come home and make dinner, until I found it incredibly annoying.” Not wanting to have the “boy role” and the “girl role,” Ina said they threw them away entirely and started over.
Last year, Ina revealed that she and Jeffrey almost separated a few years into their marriage, when she “shattered” their traditional roles by buying her Barefoot Contessa store. “While I was still cooking, cleaning, shopping, managing at the store, I was doing it as a businesswoman, not a wife,” she wrote in her memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, “My responsibilities made it impossible for me to even think about anything else.”
At the time, she also recalled not paying enough attention to her husband, who would visit from Washington, D.C. on the weekends. “I just wanted everyone to leave me alone so I could concentrate on the store,” she said. “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.”
The “hardest thing [she] ever did” was to suggest a separation. “In true Jeffrey form, he said, ‘If you feel like you need to be on your own, you need to do it,'” she recalled, adding that she threw herself into her work until the store closed that winter. Ultimately, they got back together, and Ina asked Jeffrey to see a therapist to help him not see her as a typical “wife.” Six weeks later, they aired their concerns and worked on “being equals who took care of each other.”
Earlier this year, Ina said that at this stage in the marriage, they’re each the most important thing in each other’s lives, telling Us Weekly, “He might be in China or Kenya or New Haven at Yale, but I know that no matter what’s going on, I’m the center of his life. And that’s just incredibly grounding. And I think that’s what makes a good relationship.”
