Ina Garten Opens Up About the ‘Freedom’ She Feels in Her 57-Year-Marriage to Jeffrey (Exclusive)

Ana CalderoneThu, September 24, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC

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Ina and Jeffrey garten left, ca. 1970, and right, in 2023Credit: Ina Garten/Instagram (2) -

Ina Garten shares the secrets to her happy marriage with husband Jeffrey in a PEOPLE cover story

The couple enjoys a quiet lifestyle, balancing their careers with quality time together in East Hampton, N.Y. and New York City

“He’s just so incredibly affectionate and supportive,” she says

Ina Garten doesn’t know her love language but that doesn’t matter, because Jeffrey speaks all of them.

“He’s just so incredibly affectionate and supportive and positive and happy and funny and smart,” she gushes of her husband of 57 years. “He’s just incredible.”

In this week’s cover story, the Happy Hour with Ina Garten podcast host shares that the two “keep it simple.”

Ina Garten at home in East Hampton, N.Y.Credit: Winnie Au

“We don’t complicate our personal lives. We each love what we do professionally. What he did [as a financier for Lehman Brothers] took him to Hong Kong for two years [in the 1980s],” she says. “We give each other the space to do what we love to do, and we’re the anchor in each other’s lives. I think a lot of people in a relationship feel like it restricts them, but I feel that since he’s always there, and I’m always there for him, it gives us freedom, actually, which is nice.”

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Ina works out of their East Hampton, N.Y. home most days, where she tests recipes for her cookbooks (her 14th, Simply Ina, will be out Oct. 20). When she’s filming her new podcast out of their New York City apartment, Jeffrey comes with her on his way to Yale, where he is a professor.

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Ina and Jeffrey in 2024Credit: Allison Michael Orenstein

“We don’t have kids, we don’t have cats, we don’t have dogs, we don’t even have gerbils,” she says of their lifestyle. “We work really hard, and we love the time that we spend together.”

A perfect day off for them is casual. “I love doing laundry. Going for a walk. Jeffrey and I go for lunch, take a nap in the afternoon, read a book,” she says. “Whatever I feel like doing without having to say, ‘Okay, I have to finish this now because I have four more things to do.’ To me, that’s the greatest luxury is a day off like that.”

Ina and Jeffrey on their wedding day in 1968Credit: Ina Garten/Facebook

Ina and Jeffrey met in 1964 at Dartmouth College while Jeffrey was a student and she was visiting her brother. They went through “a little rough period in the beginning,” when she was starting her career and wanted less traditional gender roles at home. (Her 2024 memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens detailed their separation and near-divorce in the 1970s.) They “worked it out” as she puts it — and have been in step ever since.

Asked what her life might be like if she and Jeffrey stopped working, and she laughs: “It won’t happen. We love what we do — why would I stop?”

For more from Ina Garten, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE on stands Friday.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”