Ina Garten once considered a divorce from her husband, Jeffrey Garten, when she began running her specialty food store, the Barefoot Contessa, in the late ’70s.
“It was the hardest thing I ever did. I told him that I needed to be on my own,” the cookbook author, 76, writes in her upcoming memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens,” per an excerpt obtained by People.
“I didn’t say whether it was for now … or forever.”
The beloved Food Network star told the outlet that she was working long hours running her new store at the time – and that her husband “expected a wife that would make dinner” every night.
“When I bought Barefoot Contessa, I shattered our traditional roles — took a baseball bat to them and left them in pieces,” she writes in her memoir.
“While I was still cooking, cleaning, shopping, managing at the store, I was doing it as a businesswoman, not a wife. My responsibilities made it impossible for me to even think about anything else.”
Per the excerpt, Ina admitted to Jeffrey that there was no way for those expectations to be set – let alone met – with how hard she was working at the store.
“There was no expectation about who got home from work first and what they should do, because I never got home from work!” she recalls in her memoir.
During this time, Jeffrey had stayed to work in Washington, DC, where they both previously worked at the White House. He would visit Ina in the Hamptons on the weekends while she ran the store.
“When Jeffrey came on weekends, he was a distraction,” she writes. “I didn’t pay enough attention to him. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone so I could concentrate on the store.”
Although her husband was “living the life he wanted to live,” Ina confessed that she was not at the time.
“I wouldn’t be able to figure out who I was or what I wanted unless I was on my own,” Ina went on to write. “I needed that freedom.”
Ina recalled being at her “lowest point” and thinking that divorce would be her only option to remedy the situation.
“I loved Jeffrey and didn’t want to shock — or hurt — him, so I’d start by suggesting we pause for a separation,” the “Barefoot in Paris” author admits in her tome.
Despite the difficulty, Ina noted that her spouse was nothing but supportive of her request to take some space.
“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,” the TV personality recalls.
“I buried my emotions and threw myself into my work.”
When the Barefoot Contessa closed its doors for the winter season, Jeffrey and Ina reunited to discuss how they could move forward in their marriage.
She set a firm boundary that he would need to see a therapist if he wanted to stay in their marriage.
“Jeffrey’s willingness to see the therapist was as significant as anything that might happen during their session,” Ina shares in her memoir. “He was that determined to convince me he was serious about making our marriage work.”
Ina, who began dating her husband of 56 years in 1965, has no regrets about asking for a separation.
“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,” she told People. “It changed him, but it also changed me too.”
“Be Ready When the Luck Happens” is available for preorder now before it officially hits bookshelves on Oct. 1.