Jennifer Garner is looking back at her divorce from Ben Affleck, and her comments make one thing clear: the hardest part was not the Hollywood noise. It was the home life that got disrupted.
Garner, 53, said her 2015 split from Affleck created such an “upheaval” in her family that she barely worked for a long time. The actress opened up in a new InStyle interview, explaining how motherhood, divorce, and the demands of acting forced her career into a slower rhythm.
Garner and Affleck were married for 10 years before announcing their separation in June 2015, one day after their anniversary. Their divorce was finalized in 2018. The former couple share three children: Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 13.
Jennifer Garner Said Divorce Changed Her Work Life
Garner said acting already creates long pauses for women who become mothers. Pregnancy, childbirth, and recovery can take a year or more away from work.
When her children were young, she said she “worked so little.” Then came the breakdown of her marriage.
“And then there was all the upheaval in my family,” Garner said, adding that she “really hardly worked for a long time.”
That sentence cuts through the usual celebrity-divorce framing. Garner was not just dealing with headlines, paparazzi, and public speculation. She was trying to keep a family steady while everything around it changed.
She said acting is a “very selfish” job because it follows the actor’s schedule, not the children’s.
“It’s not about pickups and drop offs or making it home for dinner,” she said.
She Still Loves Acting, But Family Came First
Garner made it clear she did not step back because she stopped loving the work.
“I feel lucky because I really come at acting from a place of joy,” she said.
She added that she is not “tortured” by the craft and simply loves doing it. Still, the practical reality of motherhood changed what was possible.
Garner said parenting forces people to grow up while raising their children.
“You have to raise yourself at the same time,” she said.
She also pushed back on the idea that parents can perfectly balance everything.
“There’s no such thing as balance,” Garner said. “There’s no such thing as doing it right.”
That honesty is what makes her comments hit harder. The divorce did not just end a marriage. It shifted the way she worked, parented, and moved through public life.
Ben Affleck And Jennifer Garner Kept Co-Parenting Publicly Civil
Garner and Affleck announced their separation in a joint statement in 2015, saying they had made the difficult decision to divorce while asking for privacy for their family.
Over the years, both have appeared focused on co-parenting, even as their personal lives moved in different directions.
Garner began dating businessman John Miller in 2018, and the two are still together. Affleck later rekindled his romance with Jennifer Lopez, married her in 2022, and split from her in 2024.
Garner’s new comments suggest that the public only saw part of what the divorce changed.
From the outside, celebrity breakups often become stories about new partners, legal papers, and red-carpet appearances. Garner’s version is quieter and more domestic. The real damage was in the daily structure: school runs, dinners, children, work choices, and rebuilding after a family split.
She has since returned to acting with more room to enjoy it. But her remarks make clear that getting there took time.
The headlines moved quickly. Her family life did not.
