New York Times best-selling Christian author Jen Hatmaker and her husband of 27 years, Brandon Hatmaker, filed for divorce on August 21, 2020.
After 27 Years of Marriage, Jen Hatmaker Files for Divorce
She posted the following response to the matter on Facebook:
“I first thank you for the kindness you have shown these last two months. We are in a moment with no handbook and without a single clue how to navigate this privately, much less publicly. I don’t know how to hide grief, so I haven’t, and I am grateful for your absolute decency these last few weeks. I don’t know how to say this, and I still cannot believe I am even saying it, but Brandon and I are getting divorced. Although the details are ours alone, this was completely unexpected, and I remain stunned as we speak. I am shocked, grief-stricken, and broken-hearted.
Although this community is impossibly dear, beloved to me, in case you are an interloper who revels in the pain of another, I beg you to spare us your cruelty. We have suffered so greatly. (Hateful comments that harm our family will be deleted.) The kids and I are getting away to retreat for a while, and I ask for your kindness…and for some room to breathe. Please respect the privacy of our children and our extended family. Our loss is not for public devouring. We are real people managing this in our real life in real time, and we are doing the absolute best we know how to do.
If you pray, pray for us. Hold us so dear to your hearts. We have felt your prayers these last few weeks. We have experienced your mercy. Thank you for being good to us. Know that we are deeply surrounded by love and have not been alone a single second in two months. Please help protect us and keep us safe as we try to heal and rebuild.
Yours,
Jen”
Jen and Brandon rose in popularity when they hosted the HGTV show, ‘My Big Family Renovation’ that documented the Hatmaker family renovating their 1908 farmhouse. You could say it was ‘Fixer Upper‘ before there was ‘Fixer Upper‘.
RELATED: 20 Things My Divorce Taught Me About Marriage
The couple has 5 children (2 of them being adopted), and Jen appeared on TODAY earlier this year speaking out against racial inequality. She said her Ethiopian daughter asked her why ‘white people thought they were better than black people,’ and it caused Jen to break down and start speaking out.
“I just sat there in front of her and cried my eyes out,” the Christian speaker and mother of five shared. “I said, ‘No no no, you are beautiful and you are important and you are equal to anybody on this earth.’ I said, ‘This is their problem.‘”
News that Jen’s marriage was on the rocks was ambiguously posted on social media earlier this summer, though her intent behind the message was unclear at the time.
On July 31, 2020, Jen wrote a Facebook post requesting that her followers please pray for her and her family. In the message, she pleaded,“don’t pry or ask or push, even out of sincere concern. Please don’t blow up our phones and inboxes and DMs (or our friends’). Just hold us close to your heart in great love. As I reengage our online community here, I’ll be whatever I am that day, so thanks for the space to be a human person. I’ve always known you were a soft place to land. Thank you for loving us in all things, at all times, through all moments.”
While some called her post cryptic and speculated her marriage was in some kind of trouble, she reassured them not to worry, but to please pray.
As she wrote in her Facebook response to her marriage ending in divorce, the one thing a Christian can do is “If you pray, pray for us. Hold us so dear to your hearts.”
