Jennifer Lopez Files for Divorce From Ben Affleck
Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce from Ben Affleck yesterday after two years of marriage. Alas, their second chance at love went splat and no one got a character transplant.
Of course there were rumors that things had been rocky with Bennifer. They put their $68 million dollar house up for sale and were discovered separately shopping for real estate. Worse, last April, Affleck didn’t go to the Met Gala his wife was hosting. Which, curiously, lines up with the date she put for their separation.
According to Lopez, the couple separated on April 26. She was in New York City at the time getting ready to co-chair the 2024 Met Gala alongside Zendaya, Bad Bunny, Chris Hemsworth and Anna Wintour. Ten days later, she attended the annual bash without Affleck.
Not that Ben is great with award ceremonies. Remember that time he won an Oscar for Argo and told everyone his marriage to Jennifer Garner was “work”? And she cried? Or when he told the Howard Stern show in 2021 that he’d “probably still be drinking if he was still married” to Garner? The mother of his three children?
Charming! Hey, Jennifer Lopez, imagine your divorce reviews from this guy! Will he blame you for his drinking? Maybe he’ll get another phoenix rising tattoo!
Jennifer Garner on Ben Affleck's enormous back tattoo: "You know what we would say in my hometown about that? 'Bless his heart. A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario? I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes," https://t.co/sEoZwA8Kas pic.twitter.com/oe7Gq5oK3J
— Jay Jayson (@JayJayson111) March 20, 2018
How does that work, Tracy? Can you rise from the dead twice? Do two phoenixes cancel each other out?
I don’t know the answer to these kinds of thorny theological questions.
Hey, he’s not perfect.
Maybe Ben Affleck knew at some level that Jennifer Lopez was going to divorce him.
Describing himself as a “not perfect man,” the “Argo” director, 52, shared that he wanted to “exercise a little restraint” and avoid “going into gossipy detail” about his and Lopez’s second shot at love in an attempt to avoid the same mistakes the couple made when they first started dating.
Restraint is mature. Maybe renovating a $60+ million dollar property as your forever home and having to put it on the market less than two years later is humbling.
I wouldn’t know, Tracy.
I think the lesson here for chumps is:
The One Who Got Away is probably a fantasy best left alone.
Everyone bought into this bullshit that Jennifer Lopez was Ben Affleck’s One Twu Wuv, aka the one who got away. Which means that Jennifer Garner, the mother of his children, the codependent chump who tried to get him sober, wasn’t legit. She was never the real Jennifer of Ben’s dreams.
Conversely, we were also served the narrative that Ben was the One Who Got Away for Lopez. They were so young! It was all the media’s fault! (Rumors of Ben’s wandering dick to the contrary.) Now she has a chance to know REAL LOVE. The kind that barfs in cars and drops ice coffee. And disparages his ex-wife. That dreamboat. That guy. HE’S GOING TO BE DIFFERENT!
And he wasn’t different. Moral: If they got away, let them stay away.
He is a POS and she knew it when she married him. I am SO TIRED of seeing the media cover him and his earlier Ex (Jen Garner). She is a cheater pants too so they deserve each other. But I wish the media would stop portraying them as “happily parenting”…it gives non-chumps the idea that we chumps should play along nicely with our FWs. You’d never catch me eating dinner with my FW and our children that he abandoned. Not for a million dollars would I sit at a table with FW.
Amen
I didn’t hang out and got my parents to be the go betweens for any communication when my kids were young.
I don’t hang out with or speak to abusers for any reason and never will again.
THANK YOU – that whole thing of Garner tagging along with these two assholes used to turn my stomach. THEY ARE ALL SO FAKE. ALL OF THEM. Hollywood is the fakest place on earth and I can’t even stand watching their movies or shows anymore. I stick to anime. If I’m gonna watch fakes….they better be in vivid colors with plenty of dragons and talking cats!
I would like to add that Mark Anthony who she had her children with was clearly a “control freak” or more accurately, emotionally abusive, and that when she got back together with Ben I felt she still hadn’t gotten out of the loop of abusive men. And I feel for her. I was there. It was one after another for a while. They can be so convincing…because they are professionally good at mindffing you. It’s like brushing their teeth, when they are done brushing their teeth,, then it’s time to be so subtly controlling and belittling- then- now I’ll make coffee! Anyhoo. Just a quick thought on that. Just another day in the life of an abuser. I did not see that “I refuse to be the ashes” from Garner. Good for her.
Didn’t she go out with Benjamin Bratt at some point? I think he had the sense to give Jenny from the block the heave-ho.
The one who got away is best left alone. I agree with that. After my first divorce, my college sweetheart got in touch and wanted to spend time with me. I had always viewed David as “the one who got away,” so I was excited about seeing him again. I drove a couple hundred miles to spend the day with him. It did not go well. He was not the same kind, generous guy I remembered from early in our relationship but the angry, sarcastic guy I broke up with. My parents were very disappointed. They liked him, told me at the time I might as well take him back because I would never find anyone better.
Then I happened across a mugshot of David being arrested for domestic violence. It was news because he was a pretty big fish in his medium-sized home city. It wasn’t is first arrest for domestic violence, either. THAT kind of shitty behavior never changes. I opted out.
Holy moly, so glad you listened to your instincts! That makes me wonder what would have happened if I’d married the guy my parents wanted me to. I was not interested at all as I had bad vibes, like you, but my parents were pushing him hard because he seemed like a hard worker, polite, he was crazy about me, etc etc, but I just felt there was something really wrong, just like with your guy. We have to listen to our instincts.
You really do, and we won’t always know the reason, and that’s not only okay, it’s frankly preferable. You don’t want to stick around for the potential fallout.
IME, people change so rarely that it’s not worth questioning ourselves or giving second chances.
Thank you! I also agree that people rarely change – unless impending death looms – and it’s one of the mantras of our society that I find so destructive. This idea that people can change, sometimes repeatedly in their lives, and I have never found this to be true. They can hide behaviors, go underground with it, or adapt different protective colorings, but the person inside always comes out eventually and people rarely change. By the time they reach adulthood (maybe earlier) they are what they are, short of an Act of God.
I had a horrible picker in my 20s, and for the longest time was convinced all my exes were great guys I’d somehow fumbled the bag with, and that they’d all be better for the next woman. Twenty years on, almost every single one of them is somehow worse – unemployed train wrecks who piss off everyone around them. Now I can’t understand what I ever saw in any of them.
The one notable exception actually got his life together and seems much nicer now, but he’s still single because he still sucks as a boyfriend.
I think we as a society overestimate people’s ability to change, especially where abuse and personality disorders are involved. Shitty values don’t change.
My religious friends believe that God can change anyone, including my ex. That’s not in my theology which leans more on the free will side, which is more realistic to me. Most adults do NOT make big changes, period. When they do it’s from a place of humility. Not likely in those with distorted thinking.
The way I understood it was that God can change anyone, but you have to ask him for his help. Free will is still involved/respected. You sinned by your own free will, and you can repent/atone by it as well. God isn’t going to just wave his hand and make you a good person because he’s in that sort of mood today.
As CS Lewis put it:
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”
Exactly. God doesn’t overrule those who choose evil. God does help those who put away evil and choose to walk humbly in His way.
I had people who are no longer close to me say that I didn’t have enough faith. No, it didn’t depend on me. He made the choice to blow up marriage and family, period. And I chose to close that chapter before there was more damage.
There’s probably a good reason they “got away.”
Was anybody else struck by the whole “Jennifer Garner got him sober and he talks down about her now that she is out of his life” thing? The whole “parentified chump” thing resonated with me A LOT this cold morning.
I almost feel like you don’t really meet somebody until they have a shot at money or power.
And the ever present reminder that Hollywood likes to eat its young.
Not sure Garner got him sober. A.) That’s not possible and B.) He drank after their divorce. Kinda puts the lie to that whole “I’d still be drinking if I were married” thing. Dude, you drink anyway — rain, shine, married, divorced, famous, not-famous.
as a codependent chump to an alcoholic, narcissistic, former executive who once passed out in a cab in NYC with his scared 10 year-old son alongside, i cringe for Garner so summarily dismissed by Affleck. the nonsense she put up with, cleaned up from, drove to rehab, reassured her scared kids about, smoothed over, side-eyed, ignored, and despaired over. it’s a lot.
then he calls their marriage “work”. who do you suppose was doing all the work in that marriage? then he blames Garner for his drinking because, well, alcoholic and narcissistic. forget the phoenix rising, it should be Garner inked with Halcyon, a swimming bird that traverses calm waters, once she recovered from her disastrous marriage.
TBH i also cringe that Garner is dancing attendance on Affleck through his various “times of need”. she’s hooked into this thing with him, and i get it, but it isn’t healthy. i know codependence takes a long time to understand let alone work on. it’s a real process. that’s what i think i’ll think about re: this whole divorce situation. Garner swimming the calm waters.
I was a codependent to a pill addict most of my marriage of several decades. It took me probably three years of twelve step work to get the why and how of that dynamic. My attorney called me out on that, saying that my codependency was making it harder for him to represent me. Where it really paid off is with kids, who were in college when Dad took off. I learned to set boundaries with them, own up to my mistakes, and to stay out of their business appropriately. The kids tease me about making rare “is that good for you” comments and dropping it. But they say they value that.
Agree with the parentified thing.
However Jen/Ben are both well past 50, they have no been Hollywood’s young in many moons.
Just imo Ben is a full on man whore, and Jen is a very talented, likely smart but very confused troubled woman. I don’t see either as chumps.
I’m wondering if Affleck is having a similar problem as older actresses often do – of losing their youthful looks and appeal and not knowing how to handle it. I know he’s tried to transition to behind the camera but not sure how well that’s working for him in general. I think he’s a narcissist and needs that kind of front row applause.
Maybe, I just doubt he has the talent or appeal to be more than just a sort of flash in the pan. I assume you have to have some know how and real talent for behind the scenes work. I doubt he is even in demand for off Broadway work. To be fair very few make it long term.
Some who accept their aging and continue to keep working where they can, do go on to make another big splash in later years.
You just can’t force folks to spend their entertainment money on you if they aren’t interested anymore. Lots of movies that are bombing show that.
I was reacting more to how Hollywood thrusts a lot of power and pressure on people not mentally equipped for it that sort of go nuts. Some implode. I am admittedly out of the loop on Affleck(still have Argo on my “to watch” pile) but remember reading years ago about how Charlie Sheen (of all people) drove him to rehab. Things HAVE to be bad when THAT disaster has to save your life.
Preach! Yeah my FW lived in a basement with 2 other guys and made $14/hr when I met him. I was working on my MSc. He owned his own (fairly successful) business when we split. My support definitely changed the trajectory of both of our lives… and as soon as he “made it”, he traded me in for the newer model.
Honestly, the number of rich, powerful and famous men who end up trading in the “starter wife” really makes me despair for humanity some days.
My ex got very successful and I was thrilled as we had struggled for so long, leaning on my parents for money- but then he left and later i found out he had been maneuvering out of the marriage for years as he got more and more successful. 30g worth of new teeth, a huge corner office. Boom- he traded me in for- 1, someone with her own tons of money so he didn’t have to share, and – 2 younger and huge boobs. HAHA. I am so glad I am not with someone with those “morals”.
I think for some of these guys the starter wife reminds them of….where they began. They probably would prefer to pretend they’ve always been like this, always been at this level than having someone around who remembers them from the start.
That’s my FW in a nutshell. What FW wants a chump around who remembers how much help they needed to get where they are?
I hear you. I dragged mine literally kicking and screaming out of poverty. She was finishing up her master’s when she downgraded from me to schmoopie. Last I heard she skipped town. I definitely escalated mine-though the collections notices that keep showing up in the mail for her tell about how well she is doing without me. C’est la vie!
I was definitely a starter husband, so glad my boys have my genetics and not his.
Anyone else remember the bit from the 90s show Dinosaurs, where they’d blow up the young scientist’s assistant and declare, “We’re gonna need another Timmy”?
For some reason that’s stuck in my head, but instead it’s “We’re gonna need another soulmate!”
Another lesson in “trust that they suck”.
I love this, thank you!
Exactly! My ex-FW will be husband number 6 to his AP Mrs. Bendover, and in their case I think that my ex is the next Timmy to be blown to smithereens. I’m keeping the popcorn warm and plan to watch it in slow motion!
Your X FW has my X FW beat! He would be Schmoopie’s 4th husband!! Apparently he’s dragging his heels on that now, despite the flashy rock he bought her during the fuck like rabbits stage.
The much wealthier Lopez did not require Affleck to sign a prenup. Easiest money Affleck ever made right there. 🤮
SERIOUSLY? She was that dumb? Wow. Just wow.
I guess it’s just barely possible that he won’t demand his half of their community property. Barely…
WHAT? Did not know this
Evidently, Lopez has filed Pro Se in Los Angeles. Gee, what could possibly go wrong with not retaining attorneys to protect her ~$400 million dollar estate? 😳😩
Ugh! Put down your People magazine. These Hollywood phonies have no relation to the real world. I guess without a dysfunctional Royal family this is what me get for an entertaining distraction.
True, but to be fair there is very little actual entertainment to be had anymore.
I do remember the day’s when entertainers weren’t considered the go to for political, or life guidance.
I just saw a puff piece on how influential entertainers really are when it comes to politics. Apparently the only causal link determined so far is that they are able to raise awareness on issues but don’t necessarily sway elections meaningfully. I will link it if I find it again.
If anything they destroy their careers and I have many examples of that. “Fwuck yo Fweedoms!” Schwarzenegger did that for me during COVID with his attack on those who did not want the vax. That should be a personal choice. But this son of a literal Nazi has no respect for Fweedom, he wants to force it on everyone. His action movies of the 80s were among my all time favorites that I often re-watched. I have not seen a single one since, not even Terminator or Predator and I don’t know if I’ll ever watch another movie with him again. I feel like that with a lot of these people. Woody Allen is an earlier one – not so much public stances but his revolting relationship with his step daughter ended it for me, and I loved his movies up to that point. I have not even re-watched one since. These actors should be careful of revealing too much but I think it’s probably some unwritten thing – they have to do/say these things if they want to keep getting roles/influence.
Oh I know they aren’t as influential as they think they are.
I am way out of the loop, I don’t know that I have ever heard a full JA song, if I did it was by accident. I do golden oldies for my listening pleasure, and the older I get classical.
I have seen a couple older BA movies on TV, I would rate him as a B actor at best. Mildly entertaining. But to be fair I am not the target audience of movies and tv shows; haven’t been for many years.
Idk. I suspect that if Taylor Swift endorses a presidential candidate, that person may win the election. Because it’s going to be a close election.
I’m very saddened by this. They’re both horrible people and so perfect for each other. Maybe it was those brutal late night knife fights over media headlines that finally did them in. I’m sure their love was strong. But please…….please……Ben….stay the fuck away from Jennifer Garner, you’ve done enough. That girl needs an intervention.
Shouldn’t Ben just go back to Matt Damon?
OHHH WOW! I don’t feel so BAD!! Before my second cheater I got a prenup,even though I only had a few thousand saved for my 2 young childrens college fund!!! I just wasn’t taking that chance!! I read that Jennifer Lopez is worth $$$$400 million while Ben, not that much. So Ben made a great investment in his new multi million dollar LOVE match made in HELL. What did he say to her?? What words instead of ACTION! What lies he told to catch this woman AGAIN. MAYBE like me, Ms. Lopez has learned a valuable lesson. JUST like I did..prenuptial, Post nup, don’t believe lies from an addict..sex addict, booze addict, drug addict, liar, cheater…their words are not worth the air behind them in their lungs. Both Jennifer G and Jennifer L need therapist who will tell them the awful TRUTH like our Tracy CL and you in CN!!! Can we send Tracy’s book to both Jennifers??? It will save alot of pain and heart break and canceled concert tours and babies born to break their little hearts too with weekend visits of custody battles. I’m sorry for all of us chumps who take unprotected second chances from cheaters and get hurt again like I did. But I’ve learned and I am at peace now. Hopefully we all take a lesson from the stars 🌟 who have all the money to make better decisions…we can overcome our addiction to false love and put down our spackle buckets forever.
You ALWAYS get a prenup. Always. I have that down probably because I’ve lived most of my life in a community property state.
Oh. I am so surprised and shocked.
Not.
I’ve mentioned before here that I knew JLo’s MIL from her marriage to Chris Judd. She did not have good things to say about JLo. I did not doubt her opinion.
As we say in AA, that program that Ben is supposed to be a part of or at least qualifies for, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
Traitor Ex has done nothing but prove that divorce was a good idea.
Think of the side pieces as walking talking living proof that your partner was a jerk. Let others suffer from mirages, delusions, and illusions.
When they show you who they are, believe them.
Dr Frank Pittman says “wonderful married people don’t screw around, and wonderful people don’t screw around with married people.” You can tweak that to “wonderful people in committed relationships don’t screw around, and wonderful people don’t screw around with people in committed relationships.”
Dr Pittman kicks Esther Perel’s ass IMHO.
“Moral: If they got away, let them stay away.”
This statement is so perfectly wise and also hilarious.
I don’t understand what Jen & Ben were thinking. I don’t have too many feelings on either of them, but I’ve seen plenty of gossip.
They’re first wedding was called off 20 years ago because he cheated with a stripper weeks before the wedding. He’s gone on to cheat on others in equally embarrassing ways. He’s also just been overall a jerk to many women in his life. What evidence did JLo have that he changed?
Apparently he is more of a homebody while she likes to be the center of attention, very much in the public eye. There is nothing wrong with that, but if it is the case, she is NOT the match for him. And she clearly had not changed.
So I just don’t get how either of them thought this was going to work?
The concept of the one that got away is very unhealthy. I mean, it keeps people from growing or moving on, overlooking poor behavior, and engaging in unhealthy validation from others.
Yes. And judging by the amount of FW’s that cheat with an old high school luv that they reunited with on FaceBook as an adult? Romanticizing the “one that got away” just leads to bad situations all around.
Us Chumps are the ones that got away. Whether our FWs know it or acknowledge it, we should acknowledge it about ourselves.
Ya know…..he’s really nothing to fight over. He’s not that attractive and he doesn’t seem to be very smart either. I wonder how he built his career….hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I just hope Jennifer Garner doesn’t wreck her current relationship for her X FW, Affleck.
JLo will be okay. She seems strong & resilient. I thought her and A-Rod were a better match, but I think he became sketchy with another woman or two.
I think Jennifer Garner is pretty smart. She has implied she knows Affleck is a loser, and she doesn’t take responsibility for his behaviour, but if she outright says anything she would be subject to major hate. Look at Angelina (not saying she did the right thing, but even the kids are saying Pitt is an abuser and she gets accused of parental alienation). Garner is only doing what the family courts encourage victims to do – shut your mouth and be very very very nice.
Women definitely get more hate heaped on them I’ve noticed. Misogyny, Internalized Misogyny.
And I feel like we all at various times over compensated a bit with being fun and happy for the sake of ourselves, but mostly our kids. In hindsight I almost gaslit my kids and me making out FW was such a great dad, just so the kids felt special and loved, when he was patently not.
(Sorry for threadjacking your original comment Orlando, I went on a rant – bit I agree I hope she is smart enough to stay away)
No worries lol. I go off on random comments myself! Sometimes nothing to do with the topic either haha. It usually triggers something else that’s on my mind. I get what you’re saying, my mom did the same, but then we saw our dad’s actions which contradicted what she said about him. I agree, Garner is propping Affleck up!
They will just have to cross out the “Un” part of their new movie “Unstoppable”
Affleck has that Chris Watts two facial expressions thing – deliriously cheery, or blank (he is actually not a good actor imo) – that I have noticed in a lot of abusers. As Sam Vaknin says “there is nothing there”.
Casey also got some issues with the ladeez as well, although he is a very good actor.
“If they got away, let them stay away.” If I had known that 25 years ago, I would have avoided a divorce. And my house would be paid for.
As for Ben Affleck, there was no way a second round of Jennifer Lopez would have worked out. He’s an addict. Alcohol and gambling, for sure. Maybe he’s not drinking or abusing anything else at this point, but the “stinking thinking” that underlies addiction doesn’t go away without real work on the addict’s part.
For any of you who think the FW and AP are living their “best lives,” think about how happy the Lopez-Affleck $60+ million dollar house was. They had the huge mansion, the hyper expensive remodeling job (puts HGTV to shame), the cars, the travel, the fame, the good looks, the gorgeous kids. And it lasted not even two years.
This is the content I love. Thanks for the reminder that addicts don’t miraculously change.
They deserved each other. She is trash.
Garner dumped her husband to go after Affleck. If you’ve ever suffered the pain of listening to Ben try and talk politics it’s like a grade school kid trying to explain the Constitution.
I don’t listen to or watch any of the Hollywood trash.
Watching paint dry is more entertaining.
This is about the least surprising news story I’ve read since they got married.