Jennifer Garner reveals hardest part of her divorce from Ben Affleck

"The actual breaking up of a family is what was hard," the 13 Again star revealed

Actress Jennifer Garner, 53, opened up about the emotional challenges of her high-profile split from actor Ben Affleck, describing the end of their nearly decade-long marriage as a deeply personal hardship that went far beyond media attention and public scrutiny.

Garner shared her reflections in a candid interview ahead of the second season of her Apple TV+ series The Last Thing He Told Me.

Garner and Affleck separated in 2015 after 10 years of marriage and finalised their divorce in 2018. The former couple share three children, Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 13, and have since maintained a cooperative co-parenting relationship.

Reflecting on that difficult period, Garner said it wasn’t the intense media coverage that hurt most, but the very real loss of her family unit. “You have to be smart about what you can and can’t handle, and I could not handle what was out there,” she explained, gesturing to the distance between herself and the gossip surrounding her life. “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.”

Garner emphasized that while public attention made the experience “tricky” for her and her family, it paled in comparison to the emotional toll of losing the close connection she once shared with Affleck. To navigate that time, she said she leaned heavily on her personal support network. “I make a big, concerted effort to see my people as much as I can, because that’s what matters,” Garner said. “That’s where your resilience is: it’s in your relationships and in the people who carry you through.”

She also spoke about her pride in her children, calling them “just so cool” and expressing admiration for how they “walk through the world” with maturity and effort.

Garner highlighted the progress she and Affleck have made as co-parents, noting that they now approach parenting with “peace and equanimity” and a strengthened partnership that she once thought might be lost forever. “Time is the opportunity,” she said. “Time is the opportunity to heal. Time is the opportunity to forgive, to move on and to find a new way to be friends.”