Episode 381: Learning a New Life with Jen Hatmaker
Jen Hatmaker is back after living a lot of life since she was on Forever35 more than 5 years ago! She discusses her new book (Awake: A Memoir) about her life after her divorce, and looks back at her previous book (Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire), which came out just before she learned her husband of 26 years cheated on her. They touch on the relationship she and her kids have with religion and faith today, learning personal finance for the first time as a divorcee, and how she’s left the evangelical world behind.
And, Doree and Elise chat about their holiday plans and the fun ways Santa shows up for kids who are traveling for the holidays.
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Photo Credit: Mackenzie Smith
Mentioned in this Episode
Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire by Jen Hatmaker
Awake: A Memoir by Jen Hatmaker
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Transcript
The transcript for this episode is AI generated.
Dore Shafrir (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise Hu (00:17):
And I'm Elise Hu, and we are just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Dore Shafrir (00:21):
And this episode features a Return Forever35 guest. Someone who was on in May of 2020 in a very different environment. Yes. What a time that was. And her life has certainly changed a lot since she was last on the show. And she has a new book about it called Awake. And we are talking, of course, of Jen Hatmaker. We had such a great conversation with her. She is one of the most charismatic people I think I've ever spoken to.
Elise Hu (00:56):
Yeah. She's really fascinating. She was married to a pastor, famously kind of got ousted by the evangelical movement and she talks about that and really wrestled with her old identity, what her identity is now, what faith means to her. We had a great conversation. So that's all coming up for our big guest interview later in the show. But first we have some housekeeping notes. I think our Patreon sale is still on. Is that right, Dor?
Dore Shafrir (01:29):
It sure is still on. It is on until this Friday. This Friday night. I think I set it for 11:58 PM Pacific. There's still
Elise Hu (01:39):
Time.
Dore Shafrir (01:40):
There's still time. 20% off. Yeah. We're offering 20% off monthly and annual memberships. So head over to patreon.com/forever35. If you are a Patreon supporter or if you were last Wednesday, you got to see our live casual chat, which was so much fun. Thank you to everyone who joined us. And the recording of that is on our Patreon now. So if you're a Patreon subscriber, you can check that out. We also do our regular weekly casual chats, our monthly pop culture episodes. We have ad free episodes. We have the Bonus Forever35 questionnaire. We have chats in the Patreon app. I mean, there's just a lot happening on the 435
Elise Hu (02:25):
Patreon. And then we also want to remind y'all that our gift guide, we recorded our gift guide episode, but that gift guide is also available on Patreon and we sent it out to all of our newsletter subscribers. So even if you aren't one of our Patreon members, you have access to our gift guide. And there's all sorts of fun items that you can still get that are still available as we are in the holiday season now and it's not too late. It's not too late to check it out. Door. Your candle warmer recommendation is surprisingly popular or not surprising or maybe not so surprisingly popular. Is it a surprise? For our listeners, no.
Dore Shafrir (03:00):
Is it a surprise, Elise? We are big candle warmer evangelists here.
Elise Hu (03:12):
How are you doing on all your gift purchasing? Or do you have a kind of a framework for how you buy gifts in your family? Do you have a budget that you try not to exceed or do you have a certain number of gifts? How are you thinking about it? There's no wrong answers. I was just curious because I feel like this gets out of hand every year with the girls.
Dore Shafrir (03:32):
Well, it's tricky because we do Hanukkah and Christmas. So I try not to go overboard on Hanukkah because it's a present every night, which can get pretty overwhelming. But if you've ever done dog training, one of the things that you learn is that when you give a dog a treat as a reward, they are just as rewarded by the tiniest morsel of the treat as they are by an enormous treat. The size of the treat does not matter.
Elise Hu (04:03):
Yes. It's actually the receiving of a treat at all.
Dore Shafrir (04:07):
Correct. It is the receiving of the treat. And so I try to channel that in my gift giving as well. And I have found that that, at least for now, for my son who is six, that that works. He is just as happy with a fidget toy that cost a dollar or a $3 Hot Wheels car that I got at Ralph's. As he is by a "big gift." So really try to keep things moderate. He does have a list for both Christmas and Hanukkah, and it's pretty reasonable. A lot of tracks, a lot of Hot Wheels and Formula One. He's very into Formula One now. And so a lot of Formula One Hot Wheels, marble tracks. RaceTrac infrastructure. Race tracks. Infrastructure. Yes, exactly. That's
Dore Shafrir (05:08):
Awesome.
Dore Shafrir (05:09):
And for Hanukkah, we'll do one night will be his present from my parents. One night is a present from my brother. One night is a book. One night is ... So that's kind of the framework. And I think a lot of people do that for Hanukkah regardless of whether or not they also celebrate Christmas. This year Christmas is a little tricky though because we are going to be away. So we are going to have to talk to Santa about bringing the big gifts when we get back. We're going to have to put in a special request. Oh, okay. To bring the big gifts upon our return because we can't bring them where we're going, much less bring them home. So that's going to be interesting.
Elise Hu (05:56):
One of my favorite Christmas memories is, I think I was in third grade or something and we went to Disney World for Christmas and Santa, my parents explained that Santa couldn't get to Disney World, but I had asked Santa. I had gone to the mall and asked Santa for a bunny. I wanted a bunny for Christmas, a live bunny.
Dore Shafrir (06:15):
Okay.
Elise Hu (06:16):
And so I was sort of like, "Well, how am I going to get my bunny? Santa needs to give this bunny to me. " And we came home from the trip and there was a bunny at the house
Elise Hu (06:31):
And
Elise Hu (06:31):
I was just elated over the moon and Santa had delivered. And so I was like, "I guess this bunny has been here since Christmas morning."
Dore Shafrir (06:41):
Just waiting for you.
Elise Hu (06:41):
I guess Santa just came and this bunny has been waiting for me. And my bunny Mumford, who I love, RIP, Rest in Power Mumford. Obviously I figured it out, like how my parents worked it out and it wasn't really that tough for them logistically, but it's just such a magical memory that I came home and Santa had delivered the bunny.
Dore Shafrir (07:06):
Yeah.
Elise Hu (07:07):
Yeah, it was awesome. That's so nice. Sometimes when we're away, Santa will be able to make it to the ski house where we're staying, but it totally depends on where you're at.
Dore Shafrir (07:23):
Where you're at, are you driving? There's a lot of considerations.
Elise Hu (07:31):
Once they're done with school, we have three or four days left until Christmas. So the turnaround is really short to do all of the last minute prep. Yes. I do have some presents wrapped. I did order some things on Black Friday so that I would be a little bit ahead of the curve. Smart. We still have only half of the Christmas tree decorated. Ava keeps saying, "I don't want to be left out. " And so she wants to put up all the ornaments together, but every time we try to be all together, it's almost impossible that we're all together at the same time. And so Luna and I finally broke down and we were like, "Okay, one of us just needs to do the red ornaments and the other can do the silver ones and we'll just wait on all the more high priced special memorial ornaments and things." So we're still waiting and Rob went on this little problems.
(08:33)
I call them roboms when he suddenly gets ... He kind of gets Larry David sometimes and gets annoyed about something. And then he goes on a little rant about something I think is rather pickyune.
(08:46)
The other day, as we were getting all the Christmas decorations down, he's like, "What's up with Christmas colors?" Red and green, so garish, not a good combo.This is not something that you would ... The only reason it's a Christmas color is because you wouldn't actually have this color combination any other time of the year. It's just not a good combination. And so I worry that as we continue putting up decor, he's going to get upset about the colors or whatever else, whatever complaint is going to come up. But I suppose I've never really thought about whether it bothered me that red and green are together.
Dore Shafrir (09:26):
What I'm hearing is that Rob is really the Andy Rooney of our time. Red and
Elise Hu (09:35):
Green. What's wrong with red and green? What's up with red and green? Like I said, problems. He could have a whole series. Totally. Maybe he could graduate to doing the end of the 60 minutes segments.
Dore Shafrir (09:46):
This is what I'm saying. All right. Well, Elise, let's introduce our guest, Jen.
Elise Hu (09:55):
Yes, Jen Hatmaker. She is a bestselling author, award-winning podcaster, speaker, and fierce advocate for women living in freedom and agency. With 14 books, including four New York Times bestsellers along with her beloved For the Love podcast, Jen Hatmaker Book Club, and more. She reaches millions with her signature mix of humor, vulnerability, and wisdom. Her newest book, Awake, a memoir. Just came out in September of this year, and she chronicles her raw real-time journey through the shocking end for 26-year marriage, which is what Dori was alluding to earlier at the beginning of the show, and her surprising reinvention. She lives in a creaky old farmhouse, loves '90s country, so do I, and drinks Almond Joy Creamer like it's a personality trait. Find her at Jenhatmaker.com.
Dore Shafrir (10:43):
And before we get to Jen, just a reminder that our website is Forever35podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mentioned on the show. Our Instagram is @Forever35Podcast. Again, our Patreon is on sale for this week only patreon.com/forever35 for 20% off. This will be the only sale we do all year, so get in on it. Our favorite products are at shopmy.us/forever35. We also have our gift guide products all on one shelf over there. We have Elisa's daughters, tween, skincare, and beauty rex. So head over there and check that out.
Elise Hu (11:22):
Head on over.
Dore Shafrir (11:23):
Our newsletter is now on our Patreon, so you can join for free and just get our newsletter, patreon.com/fore35. And please call or text us with any questions, comments, concerns, feedback you have, and we will address them on one of our mini episodes. And that number is 781-591-0390, and our email is forever35podcast@gmail.com. And we will be right back with Jen.
Elise Hu (11:51):
We'll be right back.
Dore Shafrir (11:59):
Jen Hatmaker welcome back to Forever35. We're so happy to see you again.
Jen Hatmaker (12:06):
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, you guys. Delighted to be here.
Dore Shafrir (12:10):
Yeah. Well, you probably don't remember since you were on the show five and a half years ago. We've lived some life since then. We have
Jen Hatmaker (12:19):
Lived a few months.
Dore Shafrir (12:21):
Yes. Indeed. We've been through it. We really have. But for now, we start off by asking our guests about a self-care practice that they have. So we're wondering, is there something that you're doing right now that you would consider self-care?
Jen Hatmaker (12:36):
I have made a rule for myself and whoever works with me and for me, that we are done working Fridays by noon. I know that does not seem like much. It's a boundary. It's a boundary. There's no meetings. We're done. I will not text you. Don't text me. Nothing's due past that moment. Our weekend starts Fridays at noon. I cannot tell you how awesome that feels. It's just one afternoon, but for some reason, the mental lift that has provided for the whole team is really outsized.
Elise Hu (13:18):
And it's important that it's for the whole team, right? It's not just you or not just one member of the team, but it is across the board. Everybody adheres to that and honors that particular boundary.
Jen Hatmaker (13:29):
That's it. I tell them, if I text you afternoon on a Friday, ignore me. I don't care if I'm your boss. Don't answer me. So they don't listen. I love this.
Dore Shafrir (13:42):
This has been kind of coming up a lot from our listeners, like how to set boundaries at work.
Dore Shafrir (13:48):
And
Dore Shafrir (13:48):
What I love about what you're saying is you're kind of emphasizing this does come from the top.
Dore Shafrir (13:55):
You
Dore Shafrir (13:55):
Have to set the tone as the boss. And so I love that you're doing that. What a gift.
Jen Hatmaker (14:05):
It is really. Everybody works so hard. It's not as if we're phoning it in in all the other hours while we're working and working and working. And so for me, this means I have this permanent spot in my brain where I can schedule a lunch with a friend. It gives me this time slot that I can count on for the- You're always free Fridays
Elise Hu (14:29):
Afternoon.
Jen Hatmaker (14:30):
Always. That's the other parts of my life that bring me so much joy and respite and delight. And so tomorrow is Friday. I have a lunch at 12:30. So I just needed enough time to drive there. That's all. And 12:30, let's meet then. We'll have a three hour lunch. Can't wait. Love that so
Dore Shafrir (14:49):
Much. Well, Jen, as I mentioned, we last talked to you in May of 2020. So right before a lot of- Oh,
Jen Hatmaker (14:59):
Geez.
Dore Shafrir (15:00):
A lot of things happened in your life. What a
Jen Hatmaker (15:03):
Weird time.
Dore Shafrir (15:05):
Yeah. So I'm wondering if you could just kind of catch people up a little bit. I mean, you have this new book out Awake that is very much about that period of your life and what came after. And so if you could just kind of catch everyone up on what's been going on.
Jen Hatmaker (15:25):
Well, that was such a weird time. Of course, we were all in the pandemic. The very front edge of it, we didn't have language
Elise Hu (15:32):
Yet.
Jen Hatmaker (15:34):
We thought everything
Elise Hu (15:34):
Was going to be reopened by September.
Jen Hatmaker (15:37):
Completely. What a disorienting collective time for all of us that May. And then not six weeks later, I found out that my husband was having an affair and had a completely other different life outside of my purview. And he moved out in July of that year. And we'd been married for 26 years. We have five kids. And so a lot of women have a date and there's a before and an after
Jen Hatmaker (16:14):
To
Jen Hatmaker (16:14):
That date. So that could be sometime for some women, it's like a diagnosis. There's a before and after of sitting in that doctor's office or it's a crisis. Some tragedy happens and that's the date. For me, my date's July 11th, 2020, and my story just split in half. Married 26 years, five kids. And after that, divorced, single parent, completely different life.
Elise Hu (16:44):
How old were your kids at the time during the pandemic?
Jen Hatmaker (16:46):
At the time they were 14 to 22. So I had two in high school, two in college, and one just had just graduated from college.
Elise Hu (16:55):
Wow. So you had two of them who were on Zoom school at home. Oh
Jen Hatmaker (16:59):
My God. And you all had to- What an effing disaster. I have said, and I mean it, I absolutely was an involuntary homeschool mom and contributed to the dumbing down of America. I mean, I don't even know how we got through that year, to be honest. They learned nothing. Sorry, future. Sorry future. What a mess.
Elise Hu (17:20):
So in May of 2020, you were on Forever35. This is before ... It predates me as a host. So you spoke with Dorian Kate to talk about-
Jen Hatmaker (17:29):
Fierce.
Elise Hu (17:29):
Fierce, free and full of fire, the guide to being glorious. What do you think of that book now?
Jen Hatmaker (17:36):
Yeah. I wrote that book in 2018, more or less. That was when I did the heavy lifting of that book. And I feel so gentle and tender toward 2018, Jen, who did not know what she didn't know, and had a perception of her life that wasn't true.
(18:05)
But if I'm being also fully honest, I had alarm bells. I mean, I had alarm bells, but my knowing was telling me, "Something is wrong. Something is off." I knew something was wrong with my husband at the time. I knew something was obviously wrong in our marriage, but I just kept thinking. I can explain this. I understand where he's at. I get his deal right now and he is going to recover. He is going to rebound. We are going to rebound. We'd been through some shit before and we'd found our way to the other side. And so I just kept thinking we're going to get there. But I just feel really protective of her, of how hard she was working, how hard she was trying, how that was the dawn of fear where the red flags were no longer at low mast. They were flying high.
(19:08)
And when I think about me in May of ... I cannot believe I was on your show in May of that year. Isn't
Dore Shafrir (19:15):
That crazy?
Jen Hatmaker (19:17):
Yes. Yes.
Elise Hu (19:19):
It was right before.
Jen Hatmaker (19:20):
I didn't know yet. It was
Elise Hu (19:21):
Right before. You say you didn't know what you didn't know, and then you learned to trust your own knowing, really trust that soul, that emotional engine deep inside. I guess a two-part question. Part one is, what do you feel like you had to shed? What sort of beliefs had you held onto for most of your life? Did you have to shed after your July 11th, 2020 date? And then two, how did you learn to trust your inner knowing more? Because I think all of us could use that.
Jen Hatmaker (19:52):
A lot of things fell by the wayside after that summer. I had a unuseful, unexamined, poorly tested optimism before that date. And I don't mean that like in a ... There's a place for optimism, for sure. I'm still that way. So it's not as if I've turned into a cynic. Sure, sure. But I would say what I had kind of cherished and clung to up until that summer was this foolish, unengaged sense that things will just work out. So even when something has presented itself as problematic and it needs my engagement, clearly, it needs a hardcore discussion, it needs therapy, it needs attention, everything else needs to be triaged and service. Even when it's that big, I was still sort of moving through the world with this sense that this is going to sort itself out.
(21:02)
This penny's going to fall right side up. That's not useful, true, or helpful, and I don't live like that anymore. Also, I mean, I had spent 15 years building a community of women in which among other things, I talked about marriage and family for a couple of decades. And so my position as a wife inside a really kind of visible marriage, also in a partnership where we did not just partner in our family and home, we partnered in our work. We shoulder to shoulder next to each other in our adult work. So much of those identities just crumbled away overnight. And I wish I would've had the courage to face what I think my inner wisdom was trying to tell me before someone else chose it for me. And I don't think actually, I don't believe that women require a crisis to sort of snap to and wake up and live in their own truth.
(22:16)
I think we can choose that. Even in the beautiful, shiny light of day when the sun is shining on our stories, I think we can choose it then. I was too afraid to. And so I'll never really know what could have happened had I had more courage and more integrity, had I not spent so much time gaslighting my own self
(22:37)
Out of knowing what I knew.
(22:40)
And so now I moved through that recovery process and rebuilding process. I slogged my way through it. I mean, that's the bulk of awake, what that looked like. But I have now promised myself that for the second half of my life, I will believe myself the first time. I don't care how disruptive that thing is that I know, how scary or uncertain, or even what sort of loss is probably going to be baked into it. When I know something is wrong or over or broken or needs attention or has run its course, that's it. I will believe myself the first time without waiting for it to miraculously fix itself without my intervention, which by the way, spoiler alert, that's not how it works.
Dore Shafrir (23:33):
Oh, weird. Yeah.
Jen Hatmaker (23:34):
Yeah. It doesn't work at all. So just in case you wanted to try that as a approach to your life, I'm just telling you it's ineffective. Yeah.
Dore Shafrir (23:44):
You write so poignantly about the complicated feelings about divorce. So you have this one line where you say, "I've lost my institutional memory partner and that just really hit me. " And you got married at 19. This was someone that knew your whole adult life and so- Whole adult life. Yeah. So I'm wondering just how do you navigate grieving the loss of not just the marriage, but also that history?
Jen Hatmaker (24:20):
It's so sad. There's some things about divorce that are just always going to be sad. And I've had to come to terms with that that even though I am genuinely better off today than I was five years ago in ways that I could not have fathomed. I have recovered and not just recovered, I have flourished in ways that I had no imagination for five years ago. Having said that, when you marry somebody at age 19 and you literally grow up together, I did not have an independent adult moment of in my life. I'd never even been to a movie by myself. That is the person that I shared every memory with, every story, every year, every sort of chapter in our lives. And I was unprepared for how sad it was going to feel to me that I'd lost that partner. Not that I lost him in my marriage.
(25:23)
I was married to a hard person and I am better single than I was married, but that I lost my person who had all the inside jokes with me. Totally. I shared all the memories. We had this shorthand and nobody will ever replicate that ever. Those years are over. They're over.
Elise Hu (25:45):
Yeah. And I think about this as well, because I also split up from my husband in 2020. We kind of hot boxed. Once everything shut down, we hot boxed all of our marital issues inside the house because we were stuck together.
Jen Hatmaker (25:59):
So many people did this.
Elise Hu (26:00):
And yes, I feel like it really accelerated us splitting up and deciding in a really final way to split up. But I was thinking actually just yesterday, really only he was there for the birth of all of our children. That's right. And so when I think about the birth stories of each of them, it's still with Matt. It's still with my ex- husband. Of course. And there's something really beautiful about that, but there is a grieving that comes with it that I think that will ... It comes just like they say about all grief. It comes in waves.
Jen Hatmaker (26:31):
It does.
Elise Hu (26:31):
I found divorce to be very expansive in the same way as you. And I loved what you said about how you can't know what you don't know and you just can't imagine how expansive it can be for you and- It's true. ... your own self. But then at the same time, there is kind of something ending, something that was very formative in your life. That's
Jen Hatmaker (26:49):
Right. And in some cases, precious, in some cases fun. We didn't have 26 bad years. That's crazy. We have so many moments that were beautiful and brilliant. And to your point, I think it's worth telling the truth that some of that grief continues to wave forward in some ways, usually unexpected. My oldest son, Gavin, who's 27, got married and had our very first baby in the family in
Elise Hu (27:21):
August. Oh, congrats.
Jen Hatmaker (27:23):
And it's thrilling. It's thrilling. He and his wife are so precious and we're so in love with their son and my grandson, but I was not prepared for the absolute tsunami of grief that rolled over my head because I just hadn't thought of it yet because I hadn't gotten to it yet, but I did not expect to grandparent alone. I had a vision for our future, and it was our kids coming home to this house, to us, their home base, their home team, bringing their partners and their babies, and this being the scene of the next 40 years of joy. And when that grandson hit the scene, I went, "Oh, I don't have a partner to share this with. " And it felt really, really sad.
Elise Hu (28:14):
Thank you for sharing that with us. Okay. Let's take a break and we will be right back.
Dore Shafrir (28:26):
I wanted to just kind of touch on the evolution of your own beliefs. You were an evangelical woman influencer in the pre-trad wife era, and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how kind of the public performance of the evangelical Christian woman has changed since you started being in the public eye more than 20 years ago.
Jen Hatmaker (28:55):
God, I'm not part of that world anymore. That's not my community
Elise Hu (29:02):
Anymore.You don't get trad wife content in your feed?
Jen Hatmaker (29:05):
Geez. I think it knows better and to serve that up to me. And I have been soundly rejected from that subculture. So it's not ... I both opted out and was kicked out. So that's not my environment anymore. It's not my world anymore. In fact, so much so, what's her name? I was doing an interview with the New York Times and as a journalist does, try to find any little thing to poke and how can we make this interesting, this long form interview feature. And he's like, "Evangelical women have a lot to say about you. " And he was like, "It's not good." And what's her name? Allie Stuckey, is this ringing a bell?
Dore Shafrir (30:00):
Yeah. I read the interview. I read the Times interview, but I'm not up on that world. Are you either?
Jen Hatmaker (30:06):
Yeah. He's like, "Eli Basecki says this, this, this, and this about you. " I'm like, "I don't know who that is. " I'm like, "I don't listen to that. I don't know who that is and that doesn't bother me. I don't pay attention to that. I don't let them talk." I don't think
Elise Hu (30:17):
About her at all. Yeah.
Jen Hatmaker (30:18):
Yeah. And so I'm not interested in that community anymore. And I feel like the last 10 years have been highly revealing when it comes to this sort of marriage of white evangelical culture. And it's important to say white because it doesn't involve people of color, white evangelical culture. And it's connection to and complicity with white nationalism and anti-immigration and frankly, anti-feminism with this trad wife thing is just spiked. Not surprising. These all go together.
Jen Hatmaker (31:04):
These
Jen Hatmaker (31:04):
Are all in the same bucket. So we can just pull them up one at a time. They all compliment each other. They all serve each other, which is the patriarchy and power and white supremacy. And so I spent a handful of years fighting all those battles when I was recently ejected. So it was still very fresh for me, just barely in my rear view mirror. I attended every fight I was invited to and made a part-time job of it. I mean, I just went toe to toe with everybody on Twitter who wanted to have a say with me and wanted to just sort of poke holes in my work and my character, my faith, all of it. And those days are over for me. That is the fool's errand, absolutely unproductive, boring, predictable, uninteresting. And the only thing all that does is keep me out of my real life that has a lot more vibrancy than that.
(32:09)
And so it's weird. I look at that through a window now and I'm like, God, that used to be my home. I used to live there. I used to live there. I know that language. I know that ethos. I know how that belonging is given and revoked based on your behavior, based on your positions. I don't miss it.
Elise Hu (32:38):
God. What tools of control are on display then? There's so much control in that sort of power structure
Jen Hatmaker (32:47):
Of- Big time.
Elise Hu (32:48):
... like the Southern Baptist Church or white evangelist Christian culture.
Jen Hatmaker (32:53):
Of course. And one of the biggest tools is belonging. And that's a very powerful incentive. We crave belonging. We want to be a part of the thing. We want to be loved. We want to be respected. We want to be included. We want to feel like we're a part of the greater thing. And so when people say, if you say this, if you believe this, if you were verse position on this, if you vote like this, if you defend this group of people, we will pull your belonging from us. I understand why a lot of people stay silent. That is really punitive and very disruptive. That'll disrupt a whole life. And so it's tools of control, but they're not new. They're very historical, but they're still very effective. They work.
Elise Hu (33:50):
Yeah. In light of your own experiences, how are you raising your kids and how are your kids coming of age and grappling with their own faith and their feelings about faith, spirituality, meaning, purpose, given the experiences that you've had very publicly, you and your ex- husband, frankly.
Jen Hatmaker (34:11):
They're all over the map.
Elise Hu (34:12):
Okay.
Jen Hatmaker (34:13):
They're all over the map. I mean, I've got five kids, so there is no one story here that's exactly the same as another. And because I kind of was raised in a high control spiritual environment, I was raised Southern Baptist, which is not to say that's the only one like that. That was just my particular-
Elise Hu (34:31):
And you're right. I just happen to be familiar with it because I'm from North Texas. Yes.
Jen Hatmaker (34:35):
Exactly. But there's plenty of religious subcultures that are like, no, we know those tricks. And we know how to control women and girls. We know how to police sexuality. We know all that stuff. We know that playbook.
Elise Hu (34:50):
True love weights. Yes. Of course. Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? And we all heard
Dore Shafrir (34:56):
That
Elise Hu (34:56):
In high school.
Dore Shafrir (34:57):
Image that you have in the opening pages of your book about growing up in Planos.
Jen Hatmaker (35:03):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dore Shafrir (35:04):
I'm like,
Jen Hatmaker (35:05):
Wait, am I the cow
Elise Hu (35:06):
Here?
Jen Hatmaker (35:07):
That's right. That's familiar to a lot of women, whether or not they had an identical environment or not. And so I think that when it comes to my kids, I had already reversed course on a lot of that sort of religious dogma long before I lost my marriage. We had chosen a different faith environment, a different church environment, different theology and interpretations. And so to some degree, we didn't saddle them with the same rigid expectations and limitations. But that's not to say that they got away scot-free because they had a mom who was pretty public Christian in the public eye. They had a dad who was a pastor. I mean, that's not a clean environment for kids to grapple with their own faith. And so at this point, I mean, at this point, my kids are 19 to 27, like I mentioned, so they're grown.
(36:12)
They're young adults.
(36:13)
And I have a very ... What's the word? I am not afraid of whatever their faith journey looks like or what it's going to look like. I don't feel controlling about it. My theology doesn't require me to be afraid for them anymore. I'm not in charge of their eternity. I don't believe that anymore. I don't have those sort of fear pillars built around their process. And so we talk a lot about what everyone believes, what they're questioning, what they don't believe anymore. I think we have some real honest conversations and I just sort of watch with curiosity to see where they will land. The good thing that I can say about all my kids is that they have a really, for the most part, core character that I have a lot of faith in, that I have a lot of confidence in. And I think at least in our home, we'd done a decent job of what I think are the pillars of faith.
(37:23)
I still have faith. I don't go to church, haven't for five years, but I still have faith, but it's just much more simple than whatever I used to say. I see faith. I just see it as the two prongs that Jesus said, which is like love, God and love people. That's it. That's all I really know for sure. I don't have a much more complex metric than that. And so I think they got the love people part pretty well. And so great. Off you go into the world, go be a good citizen. I look forward to seeing how that fleshes out in their
Dore Shafrir (37:58):
Life. We wanted you to talk a little bit about kind of taking charge of your own finances. You mentioned you had never gone to a movie by yourself, but you had also never done your own taxes. That's
Jen Hatmaker (38:12):
Right.
Dore Shafrir (38:13):
And I'd love to just hear a little bit more about what that's been like, getting a clear-eyed look at your money instead of trusting your husband to just do all of it.
Jen Hatmaker (38:24):
One of the more humiliating parts of Awake that I of course included because I was committed to telling the truth in this book, not just the shiny version of it, was how deeply I had phoned in our shared financial life. And sort of financial management in general is a fairly common division of labor in a marriage. Generally, one partner takes the lead, but I would say we were beyond one partner taking the lead. I was just checked out. I didn't ask for visibility. It's not like it was withheld from me, but I didn't ask. We didn't have business meetings. I wasn't deeply involved in big financial decisions. I didn't pay attention. I wasn't watching and I should have been. Let me tell you something, I should have been. And so not only did my abdication mean that I ended up divorced and clueless financially, but I set us up for a very unaccountable disaster.
(39:35)
If no one's ever looking, if no one's ever checking, if two people are not watching where the money is going, then one person can do whatever they want and not worry about it. And so that was a hard lesson to learn.
(39:50)
And I moved into that year, and of course that is immediate needs. You immediately have to separate your money. You immediately have to sort out your own banking. You immediately have to refinance your house and your name. All of that is urgent. It can't wait for you to go to therapy.
Elise Hu (40:08):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Jen Hatmaker (40:10):
And when I think back on how overwhelming, confusing, and stressful that was, I could sob, because I had lost so much. I had no pride left. So I said, "I need help. Who can help me? " And I onboarded immediately a financial advisor, a bookkeeper. I got super cozy with my CPA. I made appointments with my banker, which is not to say nothing about how much I exhausted all my friends. I'm like, "Somebody talked to me about property taxes." I relate to this. It was just endless.
(40:51)
But here's what I can tell you. I got really serious about taking charge of my own money, and I did. And I could and anyone can. And so now I just tell women, I don't care if you are the most happily married woman that's ever lived on planet Earth, you need to know about your money. This should be a joint venture. You need every account, you need every password, you need to be in on every financial decision. You need to be helping. Be involved because you may not get divorced, but death, disease, accidents, this happens to everyone.
Elise Hu (41:30):
Totally.
Jen Hatmaker (41:30):
And so you never know when all of a sudden you need to be in the driver's seat of that car. And so now that's one of the things I'm actually most proud of in the recovering rebuilding process was how much in the just negative space I was on knowledge when it comes to money and then just how far I've come. I'm like a financial assassin now. I love that. I love that. So responsible. I am so careful. I watch every penny. I know where everything is.
Elise Hu (42:06):
Wow.
Jen Hatmaker (42:06):
I have my house in order and I'm not special. I'm not smart. I'm not like some math person. Finance is not my background. Anybody could do it. It's knowable, it's doable and it's learnable. And so I tell women all the time, know it, learn it and do it before you have to do it on your own for sure.
Elise Hu (42:24):
That's great. I think a lot of us need to hear that. So that's awesome. Very affirmative. Speaking of rebuilding, relearning, you got married when you were 19, you split up from your husband in your late 40s. Where are you with love and relationships now? Yeah,
Jen Hatmaker (42:42):
I know. And sex. Yeah. And sex, that's all in the same bucket. I certainly did not expect to be dating in my late 40s. My God. I mean, I hadn't had a first date since 1992. And so that was all really overwhelming. And for a while, not even a part of my ecosystem. The recovery process was so exhaustive and none of that even occurred to me for a while.
(43:17)
But I got maybe a year and a half north of my divorce and went, "Oh my God, I think I was telling them, I think I'm ready to maybe think about dating or whatever." I won't tell the story, but in a wake, there's one scene called Bumble in which I explain how I spent 12 hours on a dating app, so that wasn't going to be it. That did not work out for me. It's just not going to be my way. And so I actually met a man in the wild, like the olden days, like the olden times, when you just meet a person in the world and I wasn't really looking for him. It was kind of a weird surprise, random introduction in another city that neither one of us lived in. It's one of those stories.
Elise Hu (44:07):
Wow.
Jen Hatmaker (44:08):
And we have been in the most beautiful relationship. We're coming up on four years. It's crazy. And we're long distance and that works for me right now.
Elise Hu (44:22):
I like it.
Jen Hatmaker (44:23):
It works for me. I cherish my independence.
Elise Hu (44:27):
I cherish it. I love that for you.
Jen Hatmaker (44:28):
I've never had it. This is new to me. This is my house. These are my rhythms. This is my stuff. And I have a very, very full life here in Austin. These are my friends. This is my kids. I'm in no rush to walk down another aisle. And so having this relationship that doesn't have any pressure on it at all. And also we're grown. We're grownups. I'm not a 19-year-old kid getting married. Well,
Elise Hu (44:59):
You come to this relationship. Right. You come to this relationship as this version of Jen,
Jen Hatmaker (45:04):
Which- So much better.
Elise Hu (45:05):
Is so much better. It's like the-
Jen Hatmaker (45:07):
So much better.
Elise Hu (45:08):
It's the much more evolved version of Jen.
Jen Hatmaker (45:10):
Of course. As is everyone. The truth is I am a better partner to Tyler than I was a wife to Brandon. I'm just a different person and I've grown up and I'm in more possession of my own character and story arc and maturity and wisdom. And so it's fun. It's so fun. It's so easy. Having been in a kind of a hard marriage for a lot of years, and not to say it was always bad, but I just had a hard partner. I was just a hard person. Not easy. Nothing was ever easy. Nothing. And so being with somebody who just lives with an ease in the world that I have never experienced 10 stars. 10 stars. Having a good time. We're
Elise Hu (46:05):
So happy. Yeah. We're so happy you're in love.
Jen Hatmaker (46:07):
And sex is fun. Sex is fun at this age.
Elise Hu (46:09):
Also
Jen Hatmaker (46:10):
Saying, we're older, we're better. All of it. You know what you want.
Elise Hu (46:15):
Yeah, totally.
Jen Hatmaker (46:16):
I'm not still hindered by the lingering shame of purity culture, which is a real choke hold. That is a choke hold when you are young and you have been taught your entire adolescence that everything about sex is bad and that you are filthy for wanting any of it. That's a really hard reversal that you just do on the spot on your wedding day. And so that is so far in my history. So that's no longer like a speed bump in the road. It's just better to be older. I just prefer being older to being younger, basically in every category. I agree. Right.
Dore Shafrir (46:52):
Jen, before we let you go, I'm wondering, what would you tell our listeners who maybe have that sort of gut feeling that you were talking about when we first started talking and don't know what to do or how to take action? What would you tell those people who I'm assuming are mostly women, but don't want to
Jen Hatmaker (47:13):
Assume? Very, very simple. Very, very simple. Believe yourself. Believe yourself. Yourself is not lying to yourself. If your body is giving you signals, if your body is saying red flag, if your body is sounding an alarm bell, if your body is telling you something is wrong or broken or in trouble, you are not lying to yourself. Stop gaslighting yourself. So when you have that sense, and everyone listening knows what I'm talking about, we know what that is. We don't want to know what that is. We don't want to admit it. We don't want someone else to know what we think. We fear the cost of admitting that thing or telling the truth about that thing, but we still know that thing. So whether you admit it or not, what's true is still true. So if something's broken, it's broken. Whether you say it is or isn't.
(48:13)
And so there's a cost one way or another. You're either going to tell the truth and move into alignment and integrity and then figure out how to manage the disruption that will cause, which it often does. Or you're already paying the cost to stay. You're paying the cost. It's not free. You are paying the cost. It's at the expense of your peace, your joy, your possibility, your happiness, your wellbeing, your mental health. There's a cost one way or another. So pick.
Elise Hu (48:44):
Absolutely.
Jen Hatmaker (48:45):
Pick. Do you want to pay it now with your silence or do you want to pay it later in freedom? And I am here to tell you, pay it in freedom. It is a smaller cost than the one you're paying now. Believe yourself.
Elise Hu (48:59):
Jen Hatmaker,
Dore Shafrir (49:00):
Everybody. Oh, that's a beautiful note to end on. Yeah. Jen, do you have any events coming up or anything you want to kind of mention or plug?
Jen Hatmaker (49:13):
I just finished an absolute foot on the gas book tour. And so I am staring down a season of rest and recovery. I just got back from Ireland and Scotland for 10 days with my boyfriend Tyler and all of our best friends. And I am thrilled about it. I am thrilled about a slower, that here comes winter, like a cozier, quieter season of rest after what feels like a job well done. And I'm no stranger to hard work. I love hard work and I appreciate it. And getting to be on a book tour is a writer's dream. So I'm not complaining. It's not complaints. But no, I have nothing to plug. I am taking off Friday at noon and- Amazing. I am having brunch on the weekends with my friends. And if I can sneak in a nap on Saturday, I'm here for it.
Elise Hu (50:14):
Fantastic. Jen Hatmeiker, thank you so much. Thanks for coming back on.
Jen Hatmaker (50:18):
Thanks for having me back, you guys.
Dore Shafrir (50:23):
Well, Jen was delightful and I see ... She's just so engaging.
Elise Hu (50:29):
Yeah. If you want to hear more Jen, there's her Forever35 questionnaire, which we're going to put out tomorrow. We put out the Forever35 questionnaire on Tuesdays and she answers questions like the candle she just lit and the book that she's recommending to everyone, which is a book that I am now going to get into. So tune in tomorrow on our Patreon if you want to hear more, Jen.
Dore Shafrir (50:50):
Elise, did you put up your Christmas decor? It sounds like you didn't.
Elise Hu (50:57):
Halfway. Yes. Yeah. There's a wreath on the door. There's Christmas lights outside the house, but then I didn't do the candy lane walkway. I usually do a little lit ... We have candy can lights and we do a little walkway up to the house. Haven't done that yet because I got a bunch of texts from Roblems saying, "How do you want these candy canes?" And then I didn't want to actually put in the mental load of directing how the candy canes went up. So I was just like, "Whatever, we just won't do them right now." It's a stressful time of year.
Dore Shafrir (51:28):
Wow. He really wants to art direct this whole thing.
Elise Hu (51:31):
Oh my gosh. You know what he would be really good at is staging homes. He really likes that kind of thing. So anyway, they're half up. I'm getting there. So for my next intention, you know what my next intention should be? It should not be related to the holidays at all. I'm going to set an intention to say no to stuff. Say no more. No is a complete sentence. There's a lot of stuff coming up right now. We're being tapped left and right for Venmoing for a teacher gift, coach gift, cookie exchange, staying late for an hour for this, having a kid stay late for an hour for something like this, something else totally different. I'm just going to say no to more things. I'm kind of tapped out, kind of tapped out. Oh, Doctors Without Borders showed up at my door yesterday. However, my charitable giving is like tapped out.
(52:26)
So anyway, I'm going to say no more. That's going to be my intention. What about you, Dora? How are you doing with yours?
Dore Shafrir (52:32):
Well, I said I was going to declutter my office. That did not happen. I'm sorry to say, which is a bummer. So I still need to do that. This week we're in Peakonuka. Hanukkah started last night. And so just kind of getting through Hanukkah.
Elise Hu (52:54):
Get through
Dore Shafrir (52:54):
Hanukkah.
Elise Hu (52:56):
Well, we're doing it this year at our house since Rob lives with us now. And though Issa had this phase where she wanted to celebrate Hanukkah when she was younger, so we already had a menorah here. And this is like when she was four or five, but now Rob has this very avant-garde looking menorah that he's ... And I was like, "Is this what we're going to use?" And he's like, "It is a menorah, even though you wouldn't be able to tell." It's very abstract. I mean, it's not like what I imagined. So anyway, happy Hanukkah to all.
Dore Shafrir (53:33):
Happy Hanukkah.
Elise Hu (53:34):
I'm going to show this to you. I'm going to show this to you. You're going to be like, okay.
Dore Shafrir (53:38):
Okay. I can't wait. Well, listeners, thank you so much. Forever35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrier, Elise Hu, and produced and edited by Samee Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our network partners Acast, and we will talk to you soon. Take care. Happy holidays.