Tammy Bakker To End Her Marriage -- `I Hurt All The Time'

ORLANDO, Fla. - Saying she is tired, lonely and hurting, Tammy Faye Bakker will divorce her imprisoned husband, former televangelist Jim Bakker.

"Jim and I are getting a divorce," she wrote in a two-page letter received by supporters yesterday. "For years, I have been pretending that everything is all right . . . when in fact I hurt all the time. I cannot pretend any more."

Supporters of the couple's New Covenant Church, based in Orange County, Fla., remain staunchly behind the couple. They have been married almost 31 years but have been separated since Jim Bakker went to a Minnesota prison in 1989 on fraud and conspiracy charges relating to his Praise The Lord ministry.

"I can almost hear you gasping . . . saying, `It's not possible! How could they get a divorce with Jim in prison? How is this going to affect the Christian world?' " Tammy Bakker wrote.

`HE WANTS ONLY THE BEST FOR HER'

Jim Toms, Jim Bakker's attorney, said: "Jim Bakker wants the people to know he is very sad about the divorce and loves Tammy very, very much. He wants only the best for her."

In her letter, on which Tammy Bakker would not elaborate, she said the couple got their priorities mixed up. Instead of placing God first and husband and wife second, God remained first, but the ministry and its supporters became a higher priority than family. She also said she suffers from high blood pressure, anemia, asthma and hyperventilation as a result of "stress and severe nervous strain."

Tammy Bakker is 50; Jim is 53.

Toms and other supporters said they did not know of another man in her life, despite persistent rumors that there has been one.

"There isn't any present reason like that so far as we can tell," he said. "There's been marital turbulence for them in the past. I think it's really just the question of a matter of priorities that Tammy's referred to. Jim would want the marriage to continue, but he doesn't have the proximity to his wife to court her . . . and so he really is without the power to do anything about it."

SHE MAY LEAVE ORLANDO

Toms said Tammy Bakker may leave Orlando but he didn't think she had decided where she will go or what she will do. She had taken over leadership of New Covenant Church after her husband went to prison.

Helen Gordon, longtime supporter and 12-year PTL partner, said she and other friends of the Bakkers are saddened. "Jim and Tammy worked so hard they really never had time for each other, and I feel really bad for them because I love both of them," said Gordon, who lives in Winston-Salem, N.C. "It's just a sad, sad thing."

Tammy Sue Chapman, the Bakkers' 22-year-old daughter, will take over the church for her mother, according to Tammy Bakker's letter.