Jennifer Garner opened up about the end of her marriage to Ben Affleck in a 2016 interview. The actor revealed that her ex-husband could be “cold,” but in the same statement, Garner called him “brilliant” and admitted she didn’t marry a “movie star, I married him.”
Jennifer Garner once called ‘brilliant’ Ben Affleck ‘complicated’ and ‘cold’
In 2016, just one year after formally splitting from Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner opened up to Vanity Fair about the end of their relationship. Although still raw with emotion, Garner still had deep feelings for Affleck, with who she shares three children: Violet, Fin, and Samuel.
“I didn’t marry the movie star; I married him,” Garner explained at the time. “And I would go back and remake that decision.”
Garner continued, “I ran down the beach to him, and I would again. You can’t have these three babies and so much of what we had. He’s the love of my life. What am I going to do about that?“
However, Garner admitted Affleck is “the most brilliant person in any room, the most charismatic, the most generous. He’s just a complicated guy. I always say, ‘When his sun shines on you, you feel it.’ But when the sun is shining elsewhere, it’s cold. He can cast quite a shadow.”
Jennifer Garner said the couple’s primary focus remains their shared children
Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck decided to co-parent their three children amicably after their marriage ended. Paparazzi photos since their split show the couple together at different school events in support of their brood.
However, it was important for Jennifer to make known that while the end of her marriage to Ben put a period on their romance, it didn’t mean their relationship was over. As parents, they will forever be tied together via their children.
She admitted, “The main thing is these kids. And we’re completely in line with what we hope for them.”
She continued, “Sure, I lost the dream of dancing with my husband at my daughter’s wedding. But you should see their faces when he walks through the door. And if you see your kids love someone so purely and wholly, then you’re going to be friends with that person.”
She calls it one of the ‘pains’ in her life that her two marriages ended
Jennifer Garner, whose parents, Pat and William, were married for 59 years before William died in early 2024, found it challenging to wrap her head around the end of her two marriages (she was married to Scott Foley before Affleck). Garner called those failures “one of the pains in my life.”
Garner told Vanity Fair, “It’s one of the pains in my life that something I believe in so strongly I’ve completely failed at twice. You have to have two people to dance a marriage.”
She added that, “He’s still the only person who really knows the truth about things. And I’m still the only person who knows some of his truths.”
After her divorce from Affleck, Garner later told CBS Sunday Morning that public scrutiny and paparazzi pressure surrounding her marriage wasn’t what she found difficult. What was difficult was “going through [the experience]” of the end of her union from Affleck.
Garner dealt with the constant flux of interest in her private life by trying to go on with her day to day life as a mother of three . “I had to get really serious with myself. I had to say, ‘This is not healthy. You could be making your kids lunchboxes, or getting paparazzi ready. And I know why way I’m gonna go.”
Jennifer Garner has moved on romantically with businessman John Miller, whom she has dated since 2018. Ben Affleck married Jennifer Lopez in 2022. The couple became engaged in 2002 but called off their wedding in 2004.
