Jennifer Garner on Ben Affleck Divorce, “Hard” Loss of Family Dynamic

Jennifer Garner is getting candid about her divorce from Ben Affleck 10 years later.

The 13 Going on 30 star—who broke up with the Oscar winner in 2015, before finalizing their legal separation in 2018—looked back on how she navigated their high-profile split.

“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,” Jennifer told Marie Claire U.K. in a recent interview, gesturing to the distance, “was not what was hard.”

She continued, “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.”

That’s why Jennifer, 53, pays no mind to public chatter about her personal life. As she put it, “It doesn’t serve me to take in gossip about myself or anyone else, much less my kids, so I don’t do it.”

And now, she and Ben, also 53, can co-parent their kids Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 13, with “peace and equanimity.”