Jennifer Garner gave her son, Samuel, a rare public appearance over the weekend when the two attended the Lakers-Warriors NBA game at Crypto.com Arena. Jennifer shares Samuel, as well as her daughters Violet and Seraphina with fellow actor and ex-husband, Ben Affleck.
Fortunately for the kids, the two have seemed to make it work as co-parents, having no ill feelings towards each other and making their newly blended family work without any problems.
Ben and Jennifer married in 2005 and welcomed their first kid, Violet, the same year. For the next ten years, they welcomed two more children and seemed to be living a happy life together.
But in 2015, they announced they were separating. This, however, did not get in the way of how they would continue to raise their children together.
Barely a week later, they vacationed to the Bahamas together, where a source told People how they did so with their kids in mind.
“[Garner] is an amazing and attentive mother and everything she does is with the kids in mind,” the source said, adding, “they had a lot of great activities they were able to do together with the family and separately that [Affleck] really appreciated.”
The couple continued to try and work things out but just couldn’t seem to get it right between them enough to call off the separation.
In 2017, prior to the finalization of their eventual divorce the following year, Ben revealed that he had received treatment for alcoholism at a rehab facility.
“I have completed treatment for alcohol addiction,” he wrote in a Facebook post at the time, “something I’ve dealt with in the past and will continue to confront. I want to live life to the fullest and be the best father I can be. I want my kids to know there is no shame in getting help when you need it, and to be a source of strength for anyone out there who needs help but is afraid to take the first step. I’m lucky to have the love of my family and friends, including my co-parent, Jen, who has supported me and cared for our kids as I’ve done the work I set out to do. This was the first of many steps being taken towards a positive recovery.”
Ben later appeared on The Howard Stern Show where he detailed a little bit more about his alcohol abuse while being married to Garner.
“I’d probably still be drinking. It’s part of why I started drinking … because I was trapped,” he said, referring to the unhappiness he and Jennifer felt towards the end of their relationship. “I was like ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ What I did was drink a bottle of scotch and fall asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”
He added, “We had a marriage that didn’t work, this happens, with somebody that I love and respect, but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer. Ultimately, we tried, we tried, we tried, because we had kids. Both of us felt like we don’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.”
Following their divorce in 2018, Affleck talked to People about how he regrets how their relationship ended, but is grateful to have Jennifer as a co-parent.
“When you have children with somebody you’re connected to them forever. And I’m very lucky she is the mother of my children,” he said. “I’m very grateful and respectful of her. Our marriage didn’t work, and that’s difficult. Both of us really believe that it’s important for kids to see their parents respect one another and get along, whether they’re together or not.”
Last year, Ben married his former sweetheart, Jennifer Lopez, who brought in children of her own. Now, not only are Affleck and Garner working as co-parents, but they are part of an even bigger blended family. And according to Lopez, it’s been going very well.
“The transition is a process that needs to be handled with so much care. They have so many feelings. They’re teens. But it’s going really well so far,” Lopez told Vogue last November, adding that Garner is “an amazing co-parent” and that she and Ben still “work really well together”.
Sources:
https://people.com/movies/ben-affleck-jennifer-garner-relationship-timeline/
