Ben Affleck recently reflected on the impact his divorce from Jennifer Garner had on their three children.
Ben Affleck is more candid than ever in his latest appearance on The Howard Stern Show.
The actor spoke to Howard Stern about his divorce from Jennifer Garner and the impact it had on their three children, Violet, Serafina, and Samuel, saying, “Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped.”
Ben said that his and Jennifer’s 2017 divorce was a long time coming, but they stayed together as long as they did for the sake of their children.
“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,” he explained, adding that they eventually realized they didn’t want their relationship to “be the model that our kids see of marriage.”
However, he said it wasn’t a dramatic breakup:”We had a marriage that didn’t work. This happens. 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?” he continued. “Yes, but fundamentally it was always underpinned with a respect.”
Ben added that he “knew she was a good mom” and “hoped” she felt the same towards him.
But it was his children’s view of him that he was most concerned about, sharing that he knew it was time to seek help for his addiction “when I felt as if it impacted them.”
“The cure for addiction is suffering, you suffer enough that something inside you goes, ‘I’m done,'” he said. “I’m lucky because I hit that point before I lost the things that were most important. Not my career or money—it was my relationship with my kids.”
And he believes that if he was still with Jennifer, he would “probably still be drinking.”
Now that the actor is sober and divorced, he said that he’s “not cured” but he has “not wanted to drink once.”