Jennifer Garner has reflected on her "hard" divorce from Ben Affleck
The Last Thing He Told Me actress split from the 53-year-old actor-and-director - with whom she has children Violet, 20, Seraphina, 16, and 13-year-old Samuel - in 2015 after a decade of marriage and she admitted she "could not handle" the gossip and speculation about her personal life because she was struggling with the loss of a "true partnership".
12 January 2026
She told Britain's Marie Claire magazine: "It doesn't serve me to take in gossip about myself or anyone else, much less my kids, so I don't do it.
"You have to be smart about what you can and can't handle, and I could not handle what was out there.
"But what was out there 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."
Jennifer, also 53, sought solace in her friends and family in the wake of the breakdown of her marriage.
She said: "I make a big, concerted effort to see my people as much as I can, because that's what matters.
"That's where your resilience is: it's in your relationships and in the people who carry you through."
The 13 Going on 30 star is grateful that she and Ben have found a friendship and a way to co-parent amicably thanks to the passing of time.
She said: "So much about my life surprises me. That I'm still working, that I'm still alive, that my kids are healthy, that my work relationships - which are more like familial friendships - are still the same as they were 25 or 30 years ago, but richer and deeper and stronger. It's all a gift.
"I just feel so grateful to my job for giving me these people.
"And then, yeah, that I'm able to co-parent at this point in time with peace and equanimity and a partnership that I didn't know I would ever get back to.
"I think it's important for women to know, when they think, 'Oh, I'll never see that, I'll never have that feeling, I'll never be friends with this person again' [that] time is the opportunity. Time is the opportunity to heal. Time is the opportunity to forgive, to move on and to find a new way to be friends."
The former Alias star admitted her parenting has "shifted" now her kids her older, though she has found the most surprising thing about having teenagers is that "they're just so cool".
She added: "Parenting now has shifted. It's more about parenting with a button on my mouth.... You have to let them grow up and make their choices. You don't get to control it.
"[I am] so proud of how they walk through the world, and proud of them for trying hard."
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