Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck didn’t set out to be a shining example of post-split possibility, but here they are.
The actors—who were married for almost 10 years before announcing in June 2015 that they were separated and planning to divorce—have looked so at ease lately, reconciliation rumors were soon to follow.
Nor was it the first time that hopes were high for a resurgence of this Ben and Jen, the pair who hightailed it to the Bahamas with their children while their split news broke having set the tone early on about the importance of operating as a team.
Which, from the outside, can still look a lot like two people in love.
But Affleck and Garner—who share Violet, 19, Seraphina, 16, and Samuel, 13—remain exes, albeit very supportive and close exes who went through a lot to get to this place in their relationship.
Affleck, 52, recently called himself (not for the first time) “really lucky” to have a “really good co-parent and partner in Jennifer Garner,” telling GQ in January that she’s “wonderful and great and we work together well.”
Garner, who’s turning 53 on April 17 (and, incidentally, has been dating boyfriend John Miller since 2018), hasn’t had quite as much to say on the topic in recent years.
But she has acknowledged how her perspective shifted regarding what she still has with Affleck, versus what she lost in the divorce.
“When our kids get married, we’ll dance, I know that now,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021, referring to how she told Vanity Fair in 2016 that her dream of dancing with the love of her life at her daughter’s wedding had been dashed. “We’ll boogaloo and have a great time. I don’t worry about that anymore.”
By then, Garner had proven time and again that their family was paramount, and that whatever she needed to do to help Affleck for their children’s sake—such as take him to rehab in 2018—she would do.
“The main thing is these kids,” she told Vanity Fair in 2016, her first post-split interview, “and we’re completely in line with what we hope for them.” And no matter how she was feeling, she noted, “if you see your kids love someone so purely and wholly, then you’re going to be friends with that person.”
“Jen is a superhero mom,” the Oscar winner gushed to E! News in 2016. “She is an amazing mother.” And when it came to the kids, “We try our best, we put them first and that’s what we do.”
He paid tribute to Garner and his own mom, Chris Anne Boldt, on Mother’s Day in 2019, calling them “two incredible mothers who have shown me the meaning of love.”
And in 2020, Affleck told People, “When you have children with somebody, you’re connected to them forever…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.”
But while the public reverence Affleck continued to show for his ex made some people wonder why they couldn’t just get back together already, the Gone Girl star has made it pretty clear that ship has sailed.
“We had a marriage that didn’t work. This happens,” Affleck told Howard Stern in December 2021. “She’s somebody I love and respect, but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer. We did it amicably. We did our best. Did we have moments of tension? Did we have disagreements over custody? Was stuff difficult for us? Did we get angry? Yes, but fundamentally it was always underpinned with a respect.”
And ultimately, he didn’t want what was going on in his and Garner’s household before the divorce to “be the model that our kids see of marriage.”
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Mind you, by the time he talked to Stern, Affleck had reunited with old flame Jennifer Lopez, proving that anything was possible. However, they married in July 2022 and Lopez filed for divorce two years later.
But on the bright side, Garner-Affleck shippers had their raison d’être back.
Which even Garner gets, having rooted for other celebrity exes in the past. “When Jen Aniston and Brad Pitt broke up,” she told Vanity Fair in 2016, “I was dying to see something that said they were getting back together.”
All the joint graduations, school plays, holidays, and paintball outings in the world may not ever be a sign of Affleck and Garner giving romance another go, but the way they’ve made this chapter of their lives work for their children has always been worthy of applause.
For more proof that all is not ever really lost, see more of the friendliest celebrity exes:
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Jennifer Aniston & Brad Pitt
No, they are never, ever, ever getting back together. But at this point—between the birthday parties, the friendly embraces and even freaking acting out a sexual fantasy in a star-studded virtual reading of Fast Times at Ridgemont High—it feels like the former Hollywood golden couple is just taunting us.
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Sarah Silverman & Jimmy Kimmel
You know you’re cool when you can pop into your ex’s talk show and give him a hard time. Such was the case when Sarah turned up on Jimmy’s stage to chat about her new show, I Love You, America and his “cute,” “bright,” “funny” wife Molly Kimmel. “It’s not fair!” she cracked. “She gets, like, new woke Jimmy. I had Man Show Jimmy.”
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Chris Pratt & Anna Faris
TBH, we might still be mourning this relationship harder than either of its participants. Because when Anna—now married to cinematographer Michael Barrett—heard that Pratt was set to wed Katherine Schwarzenegger in 2019, she offered to officiate. She even sent over a gift after the newlyweds welcomed daughter Lyla in August 2020. Thrilled for son Jack to become a big brother, a source told E! News at the time that Anna “is very supportive.”
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Tarek El Moussa & Christina Hall
It would have been super easy for the exes’ relationship to become a flop. But more than four years after a messy split, the HGTV stars are still killing it at two projects: parenting kids Taylor and Brayden and turning run-down properties into someone else’s dream home.
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Lisa Bonet & Lenny Kravitz
Literally “best friends” as the rocker put it in a 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey, the parents to actress Zoe Kravitz still consider themselves kin. “We’re one big happy family,” Lenny said of his ex, who went on to wed Jason Momoa before their 2020 split. “It’s beautiful, and it just shows you what can be done.”
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Ben Affleck & Jennifer Garner
Since their 2015 breakup, the parents to Violet, Seraphina and Samuel have hit the conscious uncoupling trifecta: Joint vacations, shared holidays and public displays of admiration with Ben dubbing his ex “an amazing mother” during a 2016 interview with E! News.
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Nina Dobrev & Ian Somerhalder
Nina and Ian may have called it quits in 2013 after three years of dating, but they’ve remained close friends since then. In 2014, the Vampire Diaries star started dating Nikki Reed and tied the knot later that year. Naturally, Dobrev befriended the Twilight actress.
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Lady Gaga & Taylor Kinney
The two called it quits in July 2016 after five years together. The singer said on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show the following October that she’s “very close” to Kinney, adding, “He’s been my lover and a friend for so long.”
“We love each other,” she said. “That’s it.”
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Mindy Kaling & B.J. Novak
The Office‘s on-and-off pairing remained so tantalizingly close after the series wrapped in 2013 that even Mindy gets why people are still shipping them. “If I was on the outside looking at it, I would think the same thing,” she told Good Housekeeping in 2019 of naming him godparent to her kids. “But the truth is that B.J. is so much more like family now than a platonic friend.”
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Ashlee Simpson & Pete Wentz
The exes had no trouble coparenting their son, Bronx, after finalizing their divorce back in 2011. The Fall Out Boy singer has even said his former wife is “an awesome mom.”
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Miley Cyrus & Nick Jonas
So she’s over those “7 Things” then? The JoBro musician has said he’s “really friendly” with his ex. “We’ve got a good relationship.”
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Michael C. Hall & Jennifer Carpenter
The Dexter stars first met on set in 2006 before things got romantic in 2008. And although they divorced in 2011, Jennifer assured there was “nothing but love and respect” between the exes a few years later.
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Bruce Willis & Demi Moore
Long the gold standard of copacetic exes, the parents to daughters Rumer, Tallulah and Scout remain so tight that the decision to ride out coronavirus stay-at-home orders together in Idaho was a no-brainer. Quarantine dance party anyone?
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Jennifer Lopez & Marc Anthony
Some four years after their 2014 divorce, Lopez was still giving her former spouse, dad to her twins Max and Emme, props. “While I was married to Marc, he really helped me with my confidence and he saw where I suffered,” she said on a 2018 episode of Sunday Today. “He was like, ‘You’re a great singer. Don’t ever let anybody tell you you’re not a great singer.’ And I respected him so much ’cause I consider him one of the best singers of all time.”
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Courteney Cox & David Arquette
Even if it hasn’t been his day, his week, his month or even his year, the actress will be there for her former husband and Scream costar. “I mean, as divorces go, I would say it’s one of the better ones. For sure,” she shared on Running Wild With Bear Grylls eight years after their 2010 split. Raising daughter Coco, she continued, “We’re good co-parents together.”
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Cameron Diaz & Justin Timberlake
Their real life romance may have fizzled in 2007. However, that doesn’t mean the two couldn’t heat up the screen in the 2011 movie Bad Teacher.
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Peter Facinelli & Jennie Garth
Sure, the initial few months of their 2013 split were rough going, but the actors have now reached the group vacation stage of their divorce. “I really like her husband and I think he’s a great guy,” the Twilight alum told LaPalme Magazine of a 2017 trip to Cancun that included Garth, Dave Abrams, Peter’s now-fiancée Lily Anne Harrison and their three daughters Luca, Lola and Fiona. As for his relationship with Jennie, he continued, “People come into your life for a reason and relationships can change,” he told LaPalme. “Just because we aren’t living together doesn’t mean you can’t love each other.”
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Will Arnett & Amy Poehler
Despite a surprise separation in September 2012, the couple decided to put on a united front for their children. “As you know, Will and I are very, very good friends,” she explained during a 2014 interview with Howard Stern. “We are doing a really good job. I don’t think a 10-year marriage constitutes a failure. I think relationships are really tough.”
