Ina Garten Details a Separation from Husband Jeffrey in Her New Memoir: ‘Hardest Thing I Ever Did’ (Exclusive)

Standing in the library of her home in East Hampton, N.Y., Ina Garten cups her husband Jeffrey’s face in her hands, reassuring him that he looks hot for the PEOPLE cameras. “He’s just the best,” she says when he leaves the room.

The interaction makes it almost impossible to imagine that the Food Network star’s relationship was ever anything but #couplegoals. But in her bold new memoir Be ready when luck strikesclip on this week’s cover, Ina, 76, describes their separation and near-divorce in the 1970s.

Ina was working overtime running Barefoot Contessa — the specialty food store that would later become her fame — and Jeffrey was “expecting a woman to make dinner,” she tells PEOPLE.

Ina Garten and Jeffrey Garten at home in East Hampton, NY on August 26.

Allison Michael Orenstein

“There were certain roles we played, and I found them very boring,” says Ina. “I felt that if I just hit the pause button, I would get his attention.”

At the time, Ina quit her job in Washington, DC, where she and Jeffrey both worked at the White House, to run Barefoot Contessa. Jeffrey stayed in DC and came to the Hamptons on weekends.

Ina Garten opens up about her father’s childhood abuse: ‘I remember thinking he was going to kill me’ (Exclusive)

“When I bought Barefoot Contessa, I broke our traditional roles – I took a baseball bat from them and left them in pieces,” Ina writes in her memoir (out October 1). “While I was still cooking, cleaning, shopping, running a store, I was doing it as a businesswoman, not a wife. Because of my obligations, I couldn’t even think about anything else. There was no expectation of who would come home first from work and what they should do , because I never came home from work!”

“When Jeffrey came over on the 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 business. Jeffrey was fully formed and living the life he wanted to live. I didn’t, and I wouldn’t be able to figure out who I am or what I want if I didn’t need that freedom myself.”

Allison Michael Orenstein

Ina considered divorce, but asked Jeffrey for a divorce instead.

“I thought about it a lot, and at my lowest point I wondered if the only answer was to get a divorce,” she writes. “I loved Jeffrey and I didn’t want to shock him – or hurt him – so I would start by suggesting we take a break on the divorce.”

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I told him I needed to be alone. I didn’t say if it was for now … or forever. In true Jeffrey form, he said, ‘If you feel like you need to be alone, you need to to do that.’ He packed his bag and went home to Washington with no plans to return, and I buried my emotions and got to work.”

For more on Ina Garten, including a full excerpt from her memoir, Be ready when luck strikespick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

“We were negotiating a different kind of relationship,” says Ina (with Jeffrey around 1975), “which was more of a partnership.”

Courtesy of Ina Garten

When Barefoot Contessa closed for the winter, Ina returned to DC shortly before Jeffrey left for a six-week business trip.

“Jeffrey met me at [train] station, and when we got to our house, we sat together on the stairs, reluctant to go in because we were caught between two worlds: the way it was when we were Ina and Jeffrey and the sad now. Painful limb.”

“‘What can I do to make you change your mind?’ he asked hopefully, not realizing that we might succeed in our relationship, and possibly be headed for divorce. I just couldn’t live with him in a traditional ‘man and woman’ relationship. He was just doing what everyone before him had done, but we were living in a new era, and I didn’t like that behavior anymore.”

Ina (1978) created some of her most popular recipes at the Barefoot Contessa store.

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Ina told Jeffrey that he had to see a therapist if he wanted to come back. She hoped the professional would help him see her as a partner with an equally important voice.

“Jeffrey only needed one hour,” Ina tells PEOPLE. “He went once for an hour and got the hang of it.”

“Jeffrey’s willingness to see a therapist was as significant as anything that might happen during their session,” she writes in Be ready when luck strikes. “He was so determined to convince me that he was serious about making our marriage work.”

“Jeffrey read the whole thing in one sitting,” Ina says of her new memoir Be Ready When Luck Happens. “I kept bringing him snacks and coffee.”

“It’s been six weeks. We’ve talked, we’ve listened, and more importantly, we’ve heard each other when we’ve voiced our concerns. Moving forward, we could be equals who cared about each other. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but if we working toward the same goal, we could change things together.”

They came out of that period stronger than ever. Jeffrey, 77, now a professor at Yale, has been her lifeline since they began dating in 1965. Also in her memoir, Ina reveals that her childhood in Stamford, Connecticut, was marred by emotional abuse from her mother Florence, a dietician, and physical abuse by her father Charles, a surgeon.

Ina Garten

I had a very lonely childhood, but everything changed when I met Jeffrey

— Ina Garten

Looking back on the difficult period in her marriage with Jeffrey, Ina has no regrets about asking for a divorce.

“I love everything about Ina,” says Jeffrey. “I love her ability to do so many things and do them to the best of her ability.”

Allison Michael Orenstein

“Thank God I did,” she says. “I think how crazy it was and how dangerous it was, but we wouldn’t have the relationship we have now if I hadn’t done that.”

“It changed him,” she adds, “but it changed me, too.”

Be ready when luck strikes is out on October 1 from Crown Publishing Group and is available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.

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