Jen Hatmaker has opened up about something very painful and very personal.
In her new book, Awake, the HGTV personality takes readers back to July 2020 and recalls waking up at 2 a.m. to hear her husband of 26 years, Brandon Hatmaker, whispering on the phone with another woman.
The 51-year old writes this marked “the end of” her life as she knew it.
“To some degree, I almost disassociated,” she told The New York Post late last week. “It was so outside the realm of what I would have ever considered a possibility for our life, our marriage, our story.”
Hatmaker went through her husband’s computer that same night and discovered a “trail of betrayal.”
Her memoir claims the affairs went on for a “devastating time span,” with Brandon allegedly buying his girlfriends “expensive and lavish gifts” that put their family into “financial chaos.”
The very next morning… Jen threw her spouse out of their home.
“It was so shocking and stunning, and I almost could not process it,” she told The New York Post. “I couldn’t even cry. I did not know if I was ever going to be happy again.”
Jen and Brandon founded Austin New Church, although the former ultimately became disillusioned with the institution.
“Inside of that culture, the men are the leaders,” she explained. “They are the pastors. They are the leaders of the family, of the marriage. They are the spiritual authorities. And the women are essentially the support staff.”
For those unfamiliar with their story, Jen married Brandon, who was studying to be a pastor, when she was 19 years old.
They expanded their family with five kids and later appeared on HGTV’s My Big Family Renovation.
Hatmaker is currently dating Tyler Merritt and she became a grandmother in August.
Brandon, for his part, publicly addressed Jen’s accusations in a statement on Monday, September 22.
“We are all bigger than our lowest moment. For those of us living in the consequences of our actions, that can be a hard sell. While I know this truth in my head, I still struggle today to really believe it – for myself – in my heart,” he wrote via Substack.
“The lowest moment of my life was my very public affair five years ago. I caused so much pain, so much humiliation, and I brought so much confusion into the lives of many people that I loved.
“It was the culmination of a three-year personal spiral in which I had lost my anchor, felt no hope, and was the loneliest I’ve ever been in my life.”
Added the pastor:
“I’ve owned my mistakes, I’ve made amends, I continue to do the work, I’ve worked hard to restore relationships, and I’ve started over.
“I too often choose not to stand up for myself out of fear of it coming across as making excuses. There are no excuses. But I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to have an affair. I didn’t fall out of love overnight.
“Our love was coming to a slow and painful ending. And I privately mourned the death of our marriage years before our divorce.”