Jen Hatmaker
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Anonymous
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Brandon is a lot more sympathetic after his telling of his story, in all honesty, not excusing his admitted bad actions and infidelity, of course.
The horror of what he saw happen to his friend and the trauma of that compounded with the trauma of his childhood would put any person into a deep spiral of depression and anguish. His marriage, sadly, just wasn't able to deal with this. Interesting that his infidelity that was eventually discovered was a "one time deal" and wasn't his current fiancé. That what is sounded like. |
Anonymous
I hope you listen to the podcast because your snark is evident. What I get from the podcast is that B is human, and they went 3 years without intimacy in their marriage. I am not sure what marriage could actually survive that. He didn't justify any negative behavior, he can't change the past. As with many things Jen has written about, she exaggerates and directs blame anywhere but herself. Brings me to this question, if you hadn't been intimate in such a long time, why would either spouse be surprised that their marriage ended? |
Anonymous
yes, that is what I got out of it as well. I believe he met Tina well after the young affair and after moving out of the house. Either way, I admire his honesty and taking responsibility the best he can at this point. He had me actually tearing up when he was talking about his friend that he watched slowly die for 2 months. I take back anything bad I said about Brando, he appears to be a good guy after all. Hell, I have made mistakes I'll never own up to because I never got caught. LOL |
Anonymous
YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT. EVERY SINGLE WORD. I AGREE. THREE YEARS AND YOU ARE SHOCKED YOUR HUSBAND WENT ON THE PROWL? I AM A MAN, NOT MARRIED BUT IF I WERE AND MY WIFE AND I HAD NOT BEEN INTIMATE FOR 3 YEARS IM NOT MAD AT HER OR MYSELF FOR ANY MISHAPS. COME ON, THAT IS JUST OBSURD. |
Anonymous
| The question now is - when will Jen respond with a passive aggressive post, identifying herself as the traumatized victim, in response to this? Because we all know she’s probably seething right now. |
Anonymous
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I vaguely knew of the accident with his friend Scott but not the actual heartbreaking details than Brandon shares first hand.
Following such a devastating loss for Brandon and everyone who loved Scott, even if Jen had one shred of decency & compassion, one would think she would NEVER post another video of her & her besties drinking and cruising around on their golf cart to the world on SM again. But no. She does. And only now we know how disgusting that is in the wake of Brandon’s experiences with loss and suffering. |
Anonymous
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Jen’s presentation of her marriage and the ending doesn’t add up. She makes it sound like there was one horrible unseen thing that ended it all and there was no going back - which always allowed people to fill in the gaps with extreme scenarios. With Brandon’s story - it *was* a slow burn and an accumulation of many things. Many things that sound reasonable (though not okay or excusable…reasonable that all those things caused spiraling and negative effects.) Especially with witnessing his friend’s death and I’m sure the unimaginable guilt of him driving the golf cart when it happened.
Jen comes across as lying and/or really self involved to not notice how bad things were. Which isn’t the same thing as saying she deserved to be cheated on and mistreated in various ways - to be clear. Also Brandon sounds a bit in denial about his drug and alcohol problem. OnSite always felt a little bit off to me I think because so many Christian celebrities use it. But it’s odd that it was never seen or suggested he go into some sort of drug and alcohol counseling at the least. It comes across a bit of a classic alcoholic denial of “I’m not an alcoholic I just drink on the weekends!” Okay but what leads to the drinking and how much and what happens and are you in control? Trauma therapy helps with that to a point but it doesn’t address the whole picture, like someone alluded to above. |
Anonymous
Yeah I think he is in major denial about alcohol addiction. Time will tell if it backfires on him. |
Anonymous
He didn't say there wasn't physical intimacy in his marriage. He felt disconnected from his marriage, but it sounded very much like while he and Jen were still tackling problems together, they didn't handle the stress the same way. I think he held a lot back from her, so to her she was blindsided. To him, it was a slow downward spiral for three years, but he didn't even recognize that until he was in rehab, trying to figure out how he got there. Two truths to the same story. |
Anonymous
The two “truths” largely contradict each other in many spots. So no, not two truths to the same story. Two different stories in a lot of ways. |
Anonymous
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Jen herself said they were no longer having sex and worried he didn’t think she was pretty anymore. The way he says it on the podcast strongly suggests the loss of intimacy was sexual in addition to a loss of emotional connection.
Btw a late 40’s male hitting the booze/valium and perhaps narcotics heavily is gonna be impotent most of the time. He had me crying, seemed genuine in his appraisal of his marriage’s demise. I agree that he’s in denial about his alcoholism. I’m sure every AA and alanon member was kind of shaking their head when he tried to say he wasn’t an addict just responding to trauma. Yeah, that’s generally how most addicts get hooked. It’s still an addiction. Given how his started with alcohol and branched off into Valium, wasteful spending and sexual adventures he’s got some obvious addictive tendencies. He’ll need to address those roots further to walk in true recovery. I’m sure his family doesn’t relish seeing him hit the hard liquor on weekends after years of him being an angry drunk. |
Anonymous
She actually has said she was in denial that it was more than a rough patch. She admitted that looking back, she could see it was unraveling and there were problems and that her mistake was that she tried to just take the ‘power through this’ approach which didn’t help address the problems. If she thought the lack of intimacy was because he wasn’t attracted to her anymore and he thought it was because they weren’t connected anymore, obviously there was a breakdown of communication as well. She admitted it was both a slow burn and a shocking overnight end to the marriage…which is when he was caught cheating. Actually seems like what he had to say and what she has said mesh pretty well with each other. And sounds like they both acknowledge some failings. But I also 💯 agree about the concerns with him thinking it’s fine to party after dealing with addiction. If you went down that path and created all that secondary trauma by financially devastating your family and cheating, wouldn’t you try to avoid any chance of those mistakes again? I know zero of my sober friends that would think it’s cool for him to separate out the trauma and substance abuse. I’m fact, most of my sober friends developed their addictions after trauma. Healing the trauma doesn’t negate the need to be sober. I feel for the trauma, understandable to spiral after that. But what happens when the next hard thing happens? Does he think his new marriage is going to be all sunshine and rainbows (spoiler alert, I have a great marriage but it’s still hard as heck sometimes!) what happens when he and Tina have a rough patch? He’s going to be drinking and find a connection somewhere else again? That’s why you get 100% sober so you don’t do it again… I hear a lot of info to be sympathetic to (nothing I didn’t already know though), some glossing over some details that would paint him in a worse light (who he cheated with, how bad the financial mistakes really were), and also some very subtle excuse making while saying he owns his mistakes. He’s a good salesman, he’s legit been thru a lot, and he put some people who cared about him thru hell. It can all be true at the same time. Just like Jen could be frickin annoying with her shilling post-Brandon career, but also have been legit pretty badly devastated both emotionally and financially by his actions. It’s weird people think it’s an either-or. Nothing either person has said really invalidates the other persons experience… |
Anonymous
This is the best response. They are humans being human. I don’t think either one of them have invalidated the other’s story. You are so right when you say it can all be true at the same time. |
Anonymous
| The podcast is a must-listen to anyone who lurks on this board and is invested and interested in the Hatmakers. I am so glad I spent an hour of my day listening. It really changed how I see him and Jen. I agree he is in denial about the substance abuse issues becoming suddenly cured, but everything else was really on point. It was so heartbreaking to hear his voice quaver and shake with emotion at multiple points in the podcast. I respect Brandon for taking this opportunity seriously and showing vulnerability and responsibility. |
Anonymous
| I can't wait to listen to Brandon's episode! It sounds like it was an insightful listen. But just needed to say I hate and cringe so hard when Jen uses "turn up" Out of all her annoying things that's the one that's like nails on a chalkboard to me hahaha |