Years after Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck’s divorce, their split is still making headlines after the Argo star revealed he felt “trapped” during their marriage in a recent interview. But what does Garner make of her ex-husband’s comments about their relationship?
According to a source who spoke to In Touch on December 14, 2021, the actress felt that Affleck’s wording was “disrespectful” and a “slap in the face” to their family. The exes—who share kids Violet, 16, and Seraphina, 12, and son Samuel, 9—split in 2015 after 10 years of marriage. “Jen isn’t particularly happy with Ben’s wording on the subject of why they divorced,” the insider claimed. “He gave an interview saying he felt ‘trapped’ in the marriage, Jen wouldn’t have used that phrase or even opened up publicly like that. It was disrespectful.” The source went on to note, “If you think about it, it’s kind of a slap in the face to Jen and their kids.
The Gone Girl actor—who is now dating his ex-fiancée, Jennifer Lopez—expressed during an interview on The Howard Stern Show on December 14, 2021, that he felt unhappy during his marriage to Garner. In the interview, Affleck went so far as to suggest that this triggered his drinking problems. “That was part of why I started drinking alcohol, I was trapped,” he said. “I was like, ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I am not happy. What do I do?’ What I did was drink a bottle of scotch on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”
During his interview with Stern, Affleck also revealed that his and Garner’s divorce happened after they “grew apart” over time. “The truth was, we took our time, we made a decision, we grew apart. We had a marriage that did not work. This happens,” he told Stern. “It is somebody I love and respect, but to whom I should not be married any longer.” He continued, “And then we said, ‘You know what? We tried. We tried, because we had kids.’ And then both of us felt like, ‘We don’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.'”
The actor went on to claim that he and Garner “would have ended up at each other’s throats” if they didn’t end their relationship. “Did we have moments of tension? Did we have disagreements over the custody? Was stuff difficult for us? Did we get angry? Yes,” he said of their relationship following their divorce. “But fundamentally it was always underpinned with respect. I knew she was a good mom. I hope that she knew that I was a good dad. I was. I had to get sober, I knew that too and I acknowledged that. I said, ‘You’re right. I’ve got to quit drinking.'”
