Actress Jennifer Garner talks about her break-up with Ben Affleck in the new issue of Vanity Fair, and it’s heartbreaking. Garner, who was married to Affleck for 10 years and has three children with the “Batman’’ actor, said an alleged affair with the couple’s nanny, Christine Ouzounian, is not why she and her spouse split. “We had been separated for months before I ever heard about the nanny. She had nothing to do with our decision to divorce. She was not a part of the equation,’’ says Garner.
The actress added that does not look back on her marriage with regret. “I didn’t marry the big fat movie star; I married him. And I would go back and remake that decision. I ran down the beach to him, and I would again. You can’t have these three babies and so much of what we had. He’s the love of my life. What am I going to do about that? . . . He’s the most brilliant person in any room, the most charismatic, the most generous. He’s just a complicated guy. I always say, ‘When his sun shines on you, you feel it.’ But when the sun is shining elsewhere, it’s cold. He can cast quite a shadow.’’
Garner does acknowledge it has not been an easy time, and won’t be for a while. “This is not what I imagined when I ran down the beach, but it is where I am,’’ she says. “We still have to help each other get through this. He’s still the only person who really knows the truth about things. And I’m still the only person that knows some of his truths.’’ In the meantime, she’s staying off social media. “I just won’t do it anymore. I took a silent oath with myself last summer to really stay offline. I am totally clueless about all of it.’’ Ben paid more attention to how their breakup played out in the press. “Ben says, ‘Oh, you just don’t care,’ and I say, ‘No, it’s the opposite.’ It hurts me so much, and I care so much. I cannot be driven by the optics of this. I cannot let anger or hurt be my engine.’’