HGTV couple Jen and Brandon Hatmaker's 2020 split and subsequent divorce rocked both of their worlds. Former Your Big Family Renovation host Jen stunned fans in July 2020 by announcing that her family was "in a moment with no handbook and without a single clue how to navigate this privately, much less publicly" as she split from Brandon after 26 years of marriage. (Brandon and Jen wed in 1993 and share five grown children: Beth, Ben, Gavin, Remy, and Caleb.) "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," she wrote via Instagram at the time. Jen later alleged in her 2025 memoir, Awake, that the end of her marriage was precipitated by her discovery that Brandon was having an affair. Brandon publicly apologized for his past actions in September 2025, before announcing that he would no longer "address the details" of his infidelity in order to put the matter behind him. (Brandon married his wife, Tina, in December 2023, while Jen has been in a long-term relationship with author and activist Tyler Merritt since her divorce.) Who Is Jen Hatmaker? Meet the HGTV Star Who Was Cheated On Keep scrolling for a rundown of what Jen and Brandon have said about their divorce. Divorce Announcement Jen announced her and Brandon's intention to divorce via Instagram, admitting to her followers that the decision was "completely unexpected." "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," she wrote. "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." Jen filed for divorce that August in Hays County, Texas. Neither specified a cause for their split at the time. Moving On Jen shared two photos of herself via Instagram - one snapped just after she'd split from Brandon and a second shot taken two years later - to show her followers how far she'd come. "I took this picture ... almost exactly two years ago on August 6th, one day before my birthday. No one knew I was getting divorced yet, only that something had gone terribly wrong and I'd been off socials and we were in a catastrophic crisis," she wrote of the first photo. Jen admitted she could "hardly look" at the picture from 2020 without recalling the trauma and pain of her divorce. "I was so, so, so sad. I have never been that sad before or since," she admitted. "My face holds all the sorrow and shock and loss and grief I never wanted. I was at the bottom of the ocean." The former HGTV host described the then-current photo as proof that "everything [she] wrote [in her split announcement] turned out to be true." "Whatever we've built into our lives is what shows up when everything collapses. Not one good deposit is wasted; not any of the hope, the love, the relationships, the faith, the honor. Those keep. They accrue. They metastasize," she wrote. "Hang on to all the good things you have the audacity to still fight for, still believe in. Keep building. Keep choosing what is good and right and true and lovely." The reality TV star went on, "Without even meaning to, you will have built a gorgeous, strong, sturdy house that will shelter you during whatever raging storm comes. And when it recedes, you might stand under the very same tree two years later, smile from the depths of your little mended heart ... and mean it." Rebuilding Life While promoting her podcast "For the Love" on the Tamron Hall Show, Jen opened up about her divorce more than ever before. She admitted to host Tamron Hall that she worried her life was ruined after splitting from Brandon. "I was just at the bottom of the ocean. So bleak, so dark," she acknowledged. "I remember thinking at that time, 'My life is ruined, I'll never be happy again.' I thought it was true." Jen clarified, "I just could not envision a life other than the one I had built. I had been married for 26 years. We had five kids." Despite initially feeling she was "lost in the abyss," Jen said she eventually realized it was "possible" to forge a fulfilling life outside of her marriage. "What I would say is [the process] is slow. It's not overnight, there's not a formula," she told viewers. "I wanted [a formula] ... it's one day at a time. One little measure at a time." Affair Allegation Jen went public with allegations of Brandon's infidelity in her memoir, Awake. She told The New York Post that she overheard her husband whispering at 2 a.m. in July 2020 and realized that he must be having an affair. "To some degree, I almost disassociated," she recalled. "It was so outside the realm of what I would have ever considered a possibility for our life, our marriage, our story." After findi