U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert has filed for divorce from her husband, Jayson, the Garfield County Republican announced Tuesday.
The couple have been married for roughly two decades.
“It is with a heavy weight on my heart that I have filed for divorce from my husband. I am grateful for our years of marriage together and for our beautiful children, all of whom deserve privacy and love as we work through this process,” the congresswoman said in a written statement. “I’ve always been faithful in my marriage, and I believe strongly in marriage, which makes this announcement that much more difficult.”
She added: “This is truly about irreconcilable differences. I do not intend to discuss this matter any further in public out of respect for our children, and will continue to work hard to represent the people of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.”
The divorce petition, claiming the Boeberts’ marriage is “irretrievable broken,” was filed on April 25 in Mesa County court, according to documents reviewed Tuesday by The Colorado Sun.
The initial filing includes a request by Boebert that she be granted child support and given parental decision-making power for their children, who were listed as sharing an address with her in Silt. Jason Boebert was served the documents at a different address, not far from where Boebert resides.
Additional documents regarding mediation and financial disclosure were filed on May 11. The Sun was first to confirm the divorce proceedings.
Court filings list the date of the couple’s separation as April 25. They were married in June 2006.
The Boeberts have four sons, the oldest of whom is 18 and was expecting a child in April. The congresswoman announced during the Conservative Political Action Conference in March that she would become a grandmother. She noted that the child would make her a 36-year-old grandmother, just as her mother was.
Boebert detailed her relationship with Jayson, 42, in her book, “My American Life.” She wrote that she was 16 and working at Burger King when she met her future husband and “fell in love … immediately.”
“Four months after we met, Jayson and I went off to get married,” Boebert wrote, explaining that the couple were turned away in Las Vegas because Boebert was too young. “For any ‘Karen’ who may be reading this, Jayson and I broke no Colorado laws with our relationship, despite what you might be thinking.”
Boebert added: “This was no shotgun wedding.”
Boebert’s first son was born in 2005, when she was 18.
“McDonald’s offered me a shift manager position that paid more than $40,000 a year, and I was just a teenager,” Boebert wrote. “The choice between a high school geography class and a high-paying job, one that would put food on the table, was an easy one. I dropped out of high school and took the job.”
Jayson Boebert pleaded guilty to public indecency and lewd exposure after allegedly exposing himself to two girls at a bowling alley in January 2004. In her book, Boebert wrote that Jayson never displayed his genitals, but that he “acted like he was going to unzip his pants.”
Boebert wrote that Jayson “needed the alcohol and anger management classes that came with the plea deal” in the indecent exposure case.
“The left attacks us relentlessly,” she wrote. “They point to Jayson’s arrest and say awful things about him — rather than applaud a man who’s made a few mistakes along the way, learned from them, and then made himself a true success, got married and is raising four incredible young men.”
In court documents, a process server said that when he tried to serve Jayson with the divorce documents on April 25 he “was extremely angry.”
“I tried to hand him the documents but (he) did not take them,” the server wrote. “He started yelling and using profanities and told me that I was trespassing.”
Boebert was elected to Congress in 2020 after beating incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton in the GOP primary in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. She narrowly won reelection in 2022 and is expected to face a difficult race in 2024.
Lofholm, a Colorado Sun correspondent, reported from Grand Junction.