HGTV's Brandon Hatmaker Issues Lengthy Response to Ex-Wife's 'Shocking' Affair Claims

Out this week, Jen's memoir Awake isn't necessarily about her divorce, but how she put her life back together following the personal turmoil in her life at that time and subsequent decision to step away from the church she started with her now-ex. It is the split, however, which has dominated headlines leading up to the book's release.

The Hatmakers tied the knot when Jen was just 19, before the pair and their five children appeared on HGTV from 2012-2015, for two seasons. It would be five years later when things between them came to a screeching halt.

"At 2:30am, I hear 5 whispered words not meant for me: 'I just can't quit you.' My husband of 26 years is voice-texting his girlfriend next to me in our bed. It is the end of my life as I know it," Jen writes in her new book, per the Amazon listing. According to the New York Post, who spoke with Hatmaker ahead of the memoir's release, Brandon smelled of alcohol and fell asleep.

"To some degree, I almost disassociated. It was so outside the realm of what I would have ever considered a possibility for our life, our marriage, our story," she told the outlet, explaining she then went through his computer for hours, discovering a "trail of betrayal" -- including the "devastating time span" of the affair and the "expensive and lavish gifts" he got her, which allegedly sent the family into "financial chaos."

She threw him out of the home the next morning, saying the discovery was "so shocking and stunning" she "almost could not process it."

Per Jen, the two hadn't had sex for two years before the discovery, saying they began going to marriage counseling months before she found the affair. She claimed that after that, the two "had kind of reconnected sexually," which left her believing "we were trying, but we actually weren't."

"There were a lot of unaccounted absences, and the phone was never ever, ever, ever out of his hand or sight. All the warning signs were there, but I did not want to face those," she added, before claiming Brandon made "no reconciliation effort" after she kicked him out.

In addition to breaking from her husband, she also broke from the couple's Austin New Church, saying she found "the environment so triggering." She is currently dating Tyler Merritt, while her ex got engaged to current wife Tina around a year after the split. In a lengthy post shared to Substack on Monday, Brandon responded to some of the claims in his ex's book, while also making it clear that his current wife is not the woman with whom he had an affair.

"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," he began, saying that "while that was the lowest moment of my life, a very close second, is having to relive it today."

"Even harder, to watch others who I love, having to do the same. 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," he continued, saying that Jen's book "has stirred the pot quite a bit." He added that some of the coverage of her book he's seen only tells "a piece of the story," adding that while he believes Jen has "every right to share her piece of the story," it's up to him to fill in the rest.

"I'm not saying what she wrote is untrue. I'm saying that what's left unsaid isn't her responsibility to tell. The only one who can do that, is me," he clarified. Per Brandon, he doesn't want it to sound like he's "making excuses," as he acknowledges "there are no excuses" -- before adding, "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."

He went on to deny leaving Jen alone with their five children, saying three were adults and two were teenagers, all of whom he was "constantly engaged" with at the time. "Jen was certainly the sole parent who had to carry them emotionally through the trauma of my affair, but I have beautiful memories of heartfelt and honest conversations about that, as well," he added.

Brandon also denied being a pastor or in a place of church leadership at the time of his affair, before saying that "some of the discussion has painted the picture that I was cold and uncaring after my affair was exposed."

"On the early morning everything happened, Jen gave me the ultimatum to share the entire truth right in that moment. I just remember not wanting to say anything that I couldn't unsay, so I left," he wrote. "After a day or two, we sat down and I shared everything. Metaphorically speaking I said that 'everything for the past two years was a lie.' That has been taken out of context some as well."

He insisted he tried to fix things between them, saying he "worried about us every day for nearly 5 years" and adding that he went to counseling alone for three years before the affair. "I felt invisible in my marriage, and I kept spiraling until there was no lower place to go. Jen and I eventually went to three therapy sessions together - but to be honest - it was too late," he wrote, also insisting he wasn't living a "double life."

"I had one life, and in that one life, after three years of cohabitating with no intimacy or sex, I had an affair," he admitted. "We weren't intimate because our marriage was in shambles. My anger had turned to resentment, which turned to entitlement. There's no affair story that isn't gross, or secret, or deceptive. I was in the middle of giving up and trying not to. And then I did."

"While I had met my affair partner four months prior, it was literally the exact month at the three year mark without physical intimacy that I stepped out of my marriage sexually. Never before had I done that. My anger had turned to resentment, and now finally to entitlement," he said, before claiming he went to a trauma treatment center after being kicked out of the home. He said that when Jen told him there was "no path back to reconnection," he "closed the book" on their marriage.

"It's hard to admit this after growing up in the Southern Baptist world, but I see now that it was right for Jen and I to divorce. But you can do the right thing the wrong way. And that's what I did," he admitted.

He closed his post by reiterating that his current wife was not his affair partner, adding that the two did not get engaged within a year of his divorce.

"In no way was Tina involved or a part of my divorce in 2020. Jen verifies this in her book," he added. "To be clear, Tina and I had never met until after the divorce was filed. This was also after Jen told me that for her 'there was no path back to reconnection.'"

Read his full post here. Hatmaker's book, Awake, is out Tuesday, September 23.