My responsibilities made it impossible for me to even think about anything else.
She continues, “When Jeffrey came on weekends he was a distraction.
I didnt pay enough attention to him.
Ina and Jeffrey Garten.Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty
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 needed that freedom.”
Garten says she contemplated a divorce, but instead proposed a separation.
I didnt say whether it was for now… or forever.
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."
They were in a “a painful limbo,” Garten recounts.
“I doubted we could make our relationship work, and that we might be heading for divorce.
I just couldnt live with him in a traditional ‘man and wife’ relationship.
Jeffrey hadnt done anything wrong.
He was just doing what every man before him had done.
But we were living in a new era, and that behavior wasnt okay with me anymore.
I had changed.”
The two attended therapy together, and, of course, have remained together ever since.
Garten wed her husband often a fixture on herFood Networkshows, includingBarefoot Contessa in 1968.
