Ben and Jen no more. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner have split after more than 11 years together. The couple’s announcement comes just one day after their 10th wedding anniversary.
“After much thought and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to divorce. We go forward with love and friendship for one another and a commitment to co-parenting our children whose privacy we ask to be respected during this difficult time,” the couple said in a joint statement to Us Weekly on Tuesday, June 30. “This will be our only comment on this private, family matter. Thank you for understanding.”
Affleck, 42, and Garner, 43, first met on set of 2001’s drama Pearl Harbor, and shared the screen once more in 2003’s Daredevil. They remained friends before going public as a couple at the Boston Red Sox’s opening game of the World Series on Oct. 23, 2004.
The Argo director proposed on the actress’ 33rd birthday in April 2005, and wed in a hush-hush Caribbean ceremony that June. They share daughters Violet, 9, Seraphina, 6, and son Samuel, 3.
Back in March, the Nine Lives actress revealed that the pair often take turns working so the other could be at home with the kids. “I’ve been home for a long time. It’s my turn and I’m going to go to work this spring,” she told reporters at a Beverly Hills event for her film Danny Collins. “I think I’ll work the spring and summer, maybe the fall too, as long as some of it’s at home.” (That month, Garner and Violet accompanied Affleck to his U.S. Senate hearing in Washington, D.C. He’s since been preparing for his role as Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and has been filming Suicide Squad in Toronto, Canada.)
Affleck and Garner walked their last red carpet together at the 2nd annual Save the Children Illumination Gala at NYC’s Plaza Hotel in November 2014. Most memorably, Garner supported Affleck during his stellar awards season for the drama Argo in 2013.
“I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good. It is work but the best kind of work and there’s no one I’d rather work with,” Affleck said while accepting Argo’s Best Picture Oscar (his second following a Best Screenplay win for Good Will Hunting in 1997) in February 2013. “You have to work harder than you think you possibly can. It’s hard. But you can’t hold grudges. And it doesn’t matter if you get knocked down in life. All that matters is that you gotta get back up.”
Garner later reacted to the speech during an interview with The Telegraph. “I know Ben, I knew he meant it as the hugest, warmest compliment in the world,” she explained. “I think he was saying, ‘Look, what we have is really real and I value it above all and I’m in it with you and I know you are in it with me.’ That’s the way I took it.”
Affleck previously called off his two-year engagement to Jennifer Lopez in 2004. (The exes shared a laugh at the 2015 Oscars.) He also romanced Gwyneth Paltrow from 1997 to 2000. Garner split from Scandal’s Scott Foley in 2003 after two years of marriage, and later had a brief romance with Alias costar Michael Vartan.
