Jen Hatmaker
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Anonymous
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Jen and Brandon sought a highly visible social media driven ministry. This included building a local church and referencing this church in their books and posts.
As pastors of this church they dispensed countless moral teachings on how to live as a Christian. This was also done in their books and posts. Then they found themselves in a series of crises that they kept private. Even in their divorce, secrecy has been maintained. Much later Brandon makes an announcement about his new relationship and mentions his battle with addiction and suggests he was at fault for the divorce. Still very vague. Now all these people who loved, trusted, and received their teachings are not allowed to feel upset and curious as to the real story? Generally when a Christian leader has a “moral failure” they get up in front of those they lead and confess to what they’ve done and ask for forgiveness. It’s cathartic for all involved because it stills the gossip, brings the dark actions into the light and allows for full forgiveness to be granted and received. This humbling act of repentance brings profound healing if done in a loving community. None of that happened here. Instead there has been shaming of those who have been confused and hurt by the situation. Should they be allowed to keep their privacy, when they have exploited their story for years to build a lucrative ministry. It feels like pride and control to keep salient facts hidden. Even worse it smacks of no accountability for leaders to preach one thing then live another then slink away and live completely on their own terms. How convenient. Everyone understands marriages can fail from secret addictions, affairs and broken promises. It would garner no great hysteria for them to have simply stated as much in a joint statement. Even in real life that’s what is disclosed to your community in the case of of divorce. Instead this couple cashed in on their phony lives and now refuse to fess up to the full extent of their lying. |
Anonymous
Can you give an example of a high visibility Christian leader who has confessed before having been caught? This seems like a religious fantasy not grounded in reality. I can recall some public apologies, but all that I can think of were because the guilty person had already been caught cheating, stealing, using, ect… |
Anonymous
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Before would be lovely, but no most come clean after exposure or out of fear of being exposed. No one is perfect including leaders and it’s not a huge surprise when they fall into adultery, etc. It is however important they take responsibility for their behavior to those they have led. To brush it under the rug and/or run off and embrace a hedonistic lifestyle isn’t honoring to the people who gave them their time, money and service while looking up to them as Christian leaders.
This goes for Jen as well, who has taken zero responsibility for the demise of her marriage. It takes two to tango but she’s been playing the victim in her posts/podcasts. Obviously if Brandon cheated she has every right to feel angry and betrayed. But that doesn’t negate all the years leading up to his adultery where he was suffering in their marriage feeling unloved and unheard. No excuse but Jen was not even hinted at having a role in her divorce. |
Anonymous
It doesn’t always take 2 to tango and asking a woman to take responsibility for her husband’s infidelity is victim blaming and gross. This thread was stuck on this concept several pages back. I’m not sure what happened with the Hatmakers, but in general, when someone decides to cheat, that’s 100% on the individual who cheats. Marriage is hard. Weak minded people who cheat rather than working on the marriage or leaving with dignity should be held accountable. Additionally, from personal experiences, I can tell you that all sorts of shady and unsavory things happen with clergy and clergy adjacent folks and most/all don’t confess unless cornered. Cornered and caught confessions are about damage control and have nothing to do with accountability or spirituality. You’re a sucker if you think otherwise. |
Anonymous
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Respectfully need to partially disagree, my MIL was date raped at 15 by her 22 year old Mennonite boyfriend, then forced to marry him by her pastor father. Her husband emotionally, verbally and sexually abused her for 12 years. She got a job outside of the home and had an affair with a coworker to escape her church and husband as adultery was the only way she thought she could get free. Her community, parents and husband would not allow her to divorce. She was shunned by them all for a season, but she got out and married her lover moved far away and had a glorious 34 years of true love with new study husband. To this day her ex takes no responsibility for the divorce because she cheated. So I guess you can say she should have taken her two young kids while having no higher education and left behind her entire world on her own, but she didn’t have that kind of courage.
So no I’m not victim blaming. There is no excuse for cheating. Brandon should have manned up and left his narcissistic fame seeking wife if he was so miserable. It would have been better for all involved. BUT….in Brandon’s case that guy was crying out for help. He went to multiple types of therapy, started radically changing his appearance, beliefs, relationships. There were some red flags this marriage needed serious intervention to survive. It’s pretty clear Jen is all about Jen and Brandon was not getting top billing not even close. That’s not victim blaming that’s saying Jen played a role in her marriage’s implosion. Mind you we still do not have definitive proof Brandon cheated. |
Anonymous
| Cornered confessionals have the benefit of allowing the people who were under their leadership to hear the truth and know when leaders screw up there will be a public day of reckoning. It gives future victims the awareness if they get hurt they can come forward and their abuser will be held accountable. Now what happens in the abusers heart is unknown. |
Anonymous
Asking a partner to accept blame or responsibility for their partner’s cheating is a one way street. This is only expected of women. Your anecdote is a perfect example. Well, it’s not a perfect example, it’s entirely screwed up and so very sad. Your grandmother was a victim many times over in her life. I’m so sorry that she was raped, abused, and forsaken by those who should have kept her safe. Her story is not congruent to the discussion about the Hatmakers. |
Anonymous
| There are over 4000 people in the book club. At $37 a month, it’s making something! |
Anonymous
What about if he was in therapy for a tragic event he caused by his own irresponsibility and drinking? And if the people around him including Jen tried to help? And in his spiral he also cheated and did other things to implode his marriage? A wife can’t fix someone who doesn’t want to be fixed… And his own fragile ego also couldn’t handle that he wasn’t the big man and wasn’t as popular as his wife? Like, look at his insta now….he is screaming to be the big shot! That’s Jen’s fault because she should’ve made her star shine less bright to make his ego feel better? I hate that expectation put on women. A REAL man cheers his wife on when her star is shining bright, he doesn’t sulk and get jealous and find and ego boost by cheating. Even if you don’t like her beliefs/find her irritating/think she’s cashing in with all the shilling - suggesting she had any role in his imploding of the marriage totally is victim blaming and it’s the same misogynistic message women get told all the time when their marriages fail. “If she’d paid more attention to him maybe he wouldn’t have left her” “if she’d taken better care of herself he would’ve cheated” “if she hadn’t nagged he probably wouldn’t have asked for a divorce” Your comments are in the same vein as those. Women deserve better, even annoying mommy bloggers. And I don’t even like Jen! |
Anonymous
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The point is to this very day my mother in law carries guilt for her adultery. Her ex carries none, because he can only see his victimhood not his active role as a rapist and abuser. (Extreme example, sorry)
In the Hatmaker story we have no conclusive evidence he cheated, though likely given the hints. So no Jen is not to blame for his adultery, that was his horrible judgement call from a weak flawed character that chose that route. However should Jen want to have a truly healthy romance in the future it would behoove her to look at the ways she failed to show up in her marriage before the adultery. Where codependency was substituted for intimacy. At this point she is only seeing it as a case of marrying way too young and having a husband who slid into addiction after trauma and then cheated. That may all be true but she was an active participant in the relationship and had full agency. I suspect her religious training helped keep her from aggressively addressing the marital issues as church folks are taught to keep their dirty laundry private and fake it till you make it. As a pastor’s kid she’d be highly skilled at this. |
Anonymous
True, I’ve often wondered if Brandon and his friend were drinking when Brandon was driving the golf cart and his friend fell off and hit his head and later died. That would be way more difficult to accept than just an accident. No doubt Jen did try to come alongside him during that tragedy. Yet they continued to drink daily as a couple and with their friends. Right then and there they needed to get into AA and alanon. His depression was only exacerbated by his drinking. Now I know there’s not a darn thing Jen can do about making Brandon face his alcoholism but she sure didn’t have to celebrate the boozing either. Admittedly that would have required them to shift friendships to those who supported their attempt at sobriety which would have hurt. Based on photos their old friend crew loves their drinking. That’s one of countless places that some serious self accountability and changing of behaviors could have had an impact. Ultimately there is nothing Jen could have done save a self destructive husband from himself other than facing her own codependency. Which is easier said than done. |
Anonymous
That’s $1,776,000.00 per year. Damn. What do they get for $37? A copy of the book and a monthly FB live with the author? Now I’m even more annoyed with her shilling. For the love Jen stop with greedy promos, you’re getting enough already. |
Anonymous
You realize they pay the publisher for the books, and pay shipping for all those, and pay the company who puts them together? She’s not making that, lol. Shilling = annoying, but she is not making anywhere near that personally on the book club. |
Anonymous
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You realize she gets a significantly discounted rate for the book for her readers, book rate shipping and the cost packaging is still minimal. Even if she made half of of the 1.7 million that’s a ton of money.
Who else shills as hard as Jen? I know of no one but I have limited influencer exposure. |
Anonymous
Ooh, math! Yay! So, $37 per month. Shipping is $4.95, I think that is stated on the website. Does she send paperbacks or hardbacks? I know the individual books she has for sale in her shopify store are paperback, so let's assume that the average book is about $17 with the publisher selling it at 50% of that. So, each individual book costs her about $8.50. So far she's left with about $23.55 per book. Now, do we think she is writing her own chapter summaries and discussion questions? I haven't read them but I'm going to charitably guess 'yes.' However, she probably still contracts out with someone to do all the work of formatting them and sending them out to all the subscribers. I'm going to make a wild guess of about $2000 per month goes to this person, just based on what we pay web people. So, about 50 cents per book. She also sends out 'surprises' with the books. Who knows? My guess is stickers, bookmarks, magnets, that type of thing. Let's just say about $1.25 per unit cost of whatever the item is...that's fairly basic. So we are down to about $21.80. Okay, we're also going to roll her marketing and branding people into this. The ones who developed the cute little logo, the ones who make sure she's getting exposure in the right places for her book club, the ones who are designing whatever cute little surprise she sends out with the book. I'm going to estimate about $2000 a month to them too. That might be low, it might be high. (I'm basing it on what I know we pay our marketing agency.) So that's roughly another 50 cents per book. $21.30 left. Do we think she pays the authors for their video interviews? Dear God, I hope so. Let's tack on $1000, so another .25 per book for that. $21.05 left. I'm sure I've forgotten things, but we'll go with an even $21 profit per book. That's still $84,000 per month. (We're going to round that down to $80,000 just because I forgot sales taxes which will vary depending on where the books ship, but probably average around 6%...I just don't know 6% of WHAT.) $84,000 per month is $960,000. Yeah, she's getting taxed on that too but there are probably other epenses reducing a bit. (Not unrelated question...is she claiming her Me Camps as a business expense? It would be iffy, but would we be shocked?) Sorry for the mathematical interlude. |