Ben Affleck may have regretted doing Daredevil in 2003, but he forever held the flop close to his heart, given it’s the movie he credited for falling in love with his now-estranged wife Jennifer Garner. On Tuesday, June 30, the couple of 10 years announced they were getting a divorce in a statement to Us Weekly.
“That’s where I found my wife,” Affleck once gushed to Playboy in 2013 of Daredevil. “We met on Pearl Harbor, which people hate, but we fell in love on Daredevil.”
Affleck and Garner first stepped out together in 2004, and before becoming one of Hollywood’s most beloved husband-and-wife duos, married a year later in 2005.
“I sunk into a morass,” Affleck recalled of his career following fellow flops Paycheck and Surviving Christmas. “My wife was definitely around then. Getting to know her, falling in love with her and being connected with her gave me a foundation to reach out and say, ‘Okay, I’m going to do Hollywoodland; I’m going to direct Gone Baby Gone.’ Those were the steps forward I needed to put positive stuff on the board. She is by leaps and bounds the most important person to me in that respect.”
Fast-forward to 2012, and Garner and Affleck were welcoming their third child, Samuel Affleck, broadening their clan, which already included daughters Violet, 9, and Seraphina, 6.
“Ben is sexy and kind, but he’s also a riot,” Garner gushed to Parade during those happier times in 2010. “We can be very goofy together. You steal the time. You steal a date, you steal a kiss, you steal a whisper. You sit next to each other on the couch with computers on your laps. After the kids are asleep you…well, you know. Whatever it is. You slip away for a night, which we’ve only just now done for the first time. Of course, I call home while we’re away. Ben would be surprised if I didn’t.”
In 2014, Garner hinted they had issues like any other couple. “We’re in the thick of it. Our kids are little, our careers are big, our lives are huge,” she told The Globe and Mail. “We just focus on what’s important, and staying friends. We have all the other stuff, too, but if you’re going long, friendship has to be at the base of it. I’m pretty happy. I look around at other couples and think, ‘We’re doing okay.’”
As exclusively reported by Us Weekly earlier this month, sources told Us their marriage was in “trouble.” “Things are not all peaches and cream with them,” the insider told Us. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“After much thought and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to divorce,” the couple told Us in a joint statement on Tuesday. “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.”
Watch the video above for a look back at their 10-year marriage.
