Jennifer Garner is offering up rare insight into her marriage to Ben Affleck.
Garner spoke to Marie Claire UK about the couple’s very public split ― which took place in 2015 ― and opened up about the hardest part for her in the whole process.
“You have to be smart about what you can and can’t handle, and I could not handle what was out there,” Garner told the magazine.
“But what was out there,” Garner said, “was not what was hard. The fact of it is what was hard. The actual breaking up of a family is what was hard. Losing a true partnership and friendship is what was hard.”
Garner and Affleck were married from 2005 to 2015, before officially finalizing their divorce in 2018. They share three children together: Violet, Seraphina and Samuel.
The “Argo” director has said before that divorcing Garner was one decision he wishes he could undo.
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“The biggest regret of my life is this divorce,” the actor told The New York Times back in 2020. “Shame is really toxic. There is no positive byproduct of shame. It’s just stewing in a toxic, hideous feeling of low self-worth and self-loathing.”
Prior to marrying Affleck, Garner was previously married to fellow actor Scott Foley, before they divorced in 2004.
Affleck recently wed his former fiancée, Jennifer Lopez, in 2022. The two would later go on to finalize their divorce in January 2025.
Affleck has said there was no real drama behind their split.
“There’s no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue. The truth is, when you talk to somebody, ‘Hey, what happened?’ Well, there is no, ‘This is what happened,’” he told GQ last year. “It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do.”
