Knowing her worth. Jennifer Garner gave marriage advice to a fan after Ben Affleck’s divorce, and her message was so powerful. It all started when the Alias alum took to her Instagram on Tuesday, June 30, to post nine photos of her in quarantine. The snaps included pictures of the Dallas Buyers Club actress with a cat on her head and a mustache drawn on her face. “Quarantine, but make it fashion. 👩🏻🎤🤷🏻♀️ #lockdownfierce 🦹🏻♀️ #DMtobookyourColonialZoom 👵🏼,” she captioned the photo.
One fan, inspired by the Golden Globe winner’s happiness despite her public separation from the Gone Girl actor in 2015, asked her for advice on how to leave her own unhappy marriage. “I wish I had your happiness and feeling of security. And I don’t say that resentfully because you present yourself as a good and kind person,” the social media user wrote.
The follower continued, “Your actions show you to be good and kind. It’s that I have finally gotten the courage to tell@my husband to leave after years of emotional abuse and I feel@like I will never find happiness or security . I find a sense of balm from seeing yours buts it’s also mixed with a winsome feeling because I don’t think I’ll@ever be there. He is so vindictive and powerful and I have nothing and no one. Why am I saying this to a stranger? I really don’t know.”
Garner took to her comments section to response to the fan, encouraging them to leave their marriage if it makes them unhappy and to find a support system in their friends. “Your heart sounds heavy, I am so sorry,” wrote Jen. “Hopefully, you have powerful women in your corner, reminding you of your strength and your worth,” Garner wrote. “Hopefully, you are able to calm your mind with prayer/meditation/ exercise/art. Laughter will come and really ― it is worth fighting for. Until then, all of my love.”
Garner and Affleck separated in 2015 after 10 years marriage. The couple—who share kids Violet, 14, Seraphina, 11, and Samuel, 8—finalized their divorce in 2018. Since their breakup, Affleck has been in a relationship with Knives Out star Ana de Armas.
Since their split, however, Affleck and Garner have had an amicable relationship. A source told HollywoodLife in June that the actor asked his ex-wife before he introduced her to his new girlfriend. “He definitely didn’t just blindly introduce them and, of course, communicated with Jen on this before doing so,” the source said before revealing Affleck’s kids’ relationship with de Armas. “It’s been a slow process getting the kids involved with Ana, but so far they like her. They just want to see their dad happy.”
In a 2016 interview with Vanity Fair, Garner opened up about her split from Affleck and revealed that the two had been separated for some time before the news broke. She also shut down rumors that Affleck’s alleged affair with his family’s nanny, Christine Ouzounian, was the reason for his divorce.
“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. Bad judgment? Yes,” Garner said at the time. She went on to describe Affleck as the “love of her 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,” she said.