BEFORE Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez rekindled their relationship, Affleck was married to actress Jennifer Garner, with whom he has three children.

In 2015, the couple announced their separation after the celebration of a milestone wedding anniversary.

Garner and Affleck met on the set of Pearl Harbor in 2000

How long were Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner married for?

Garner and Affleck were married for 13 years before they filed for divorce in 2018 after a lengthy, two-year separation.

In a joint statement to People magazine, the couple said: “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. This will be our only comment on this private, family matter. Thank you for understanding.”

They are parents to daughters, Violet and Seraphina, and son Samuel.

Ben Affleck and JLo ‘tie the knot in Las Vegas’ after moving in together

However, in July 2022, JLo and Ben finally tied the knot in a Las Vegas-style ceremony.

Why did Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner get divorced?

Ben Affleck departed a vacation with Garner on June 26, 2015, to attend a charity poker game in Las Vegas with the family’s nanny Christine Ouzounian, according to an Us Weekly report.

Then, in July 2015, the magazine said that many sources confirmed Affleck’s relationship with Ouzounian, who is 28 years old.

Affleck’s representative, on the other hand, flatly disputed the reports, saying, “The story is complete garbage and full of lies.”

In 2016, during a candid interview with Vanity Fair, Garner spoke about her split from Affleck, explaining that the nanny was “not part of the equation” leading up to their divorce.

She said, “We had been separated for months before I ever heard about the nanny.”

Affleck said that he and Garner fell in love on the set of Daredevil

What is Ben Affleck saying about Jennifer Garner?

During an interview with Howard Stern, Affleck revealed that he felt “trapped” in his marriage to Garner and that this was “part of the reason why I started drinking.”

“I was like, ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ And what I did was [I] drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution,”  Affleck said.

A source close to Garner said that upon hearing Affleck’s claims, she was “not particularly happy with Ben’s wording on the subject of why they divorced.

“He gave an interview saying he felt ‘trapped’ in the marriage,” said the source. “Jen wouldn’t have used that phrase or even opened up publicly like that. It was disrespectful.”