Ben Affleck once explained why he refrained from talking too much about his rekindled relationship with Jennifer Lopez. Affleck described himself as “not a perfect person” and said that he wanted to “exercise a little restraint” and avoid “gossiping” about his and Lopez’s life or another attempt at love. It was the Argo director’s attempt to not repeat the same mistakes they made when they first started dating.
“One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned is that it’s not wise to share everything with the world,” Affleck told The Wall Street Journal in December 2021.
“Some things are private and intimate, and their intimacy implies the fact that they are not shared with the rest of the world,” he said.
Lopez has now officially filed for divorce from Affleck after two years of marriage. She filed the papers in Los Angeles on Tuesday, August 20, which was the two-year anniversary of their second wedding, which was held in Georgia. The actress listed the date of separation as April 26, 2024.
‘I don’t want to talk about my personal relationships in the newspaper’
Affleck said in 2021, “I feel more comfortable learning to find the line between what I want to share and what I don’t want to share. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I don’t know.”
One boundary was talking to the news media about his love life. “I know I feel more comfortable maintaining those healthy boundaries in my life around, in a friendly and straightforward way, telling you, I just don’t want to talk about my personal relationships in the tabloids,” Affleck said.
“I’m going to exercise some restraint,” he said.
However, Affleck spoke candidly about the birth of Bennifer 2.0 at the time. “I can say that it’s definitely beautiful to me,” he said. “And, you know, one of the things that I really value in all aspects of my life is that it was handled in a way that reflects that.”
“My life now reflects not only the person I want to be, but the person I truly feel I am — which is not perfect, but someone who works very hard and cares a lot about being honest, authentic, and accountable,” he explained.
Affleck said at the time that “it’s hard to say who benefits more from their sobriety.” “All I can say is that I feel very good about being very healthy,” he said. “And it’s a good story. It’s a great story. And, you know, maybe one day I’ll tell it. I’ll write it all down.”
He said, “And then I’ll set it on fire.”
Opening up about how they both got a second chance at love, Affleck said, “I’m very lucky in my life that I’ve had the benefit of second chances, and I know other people don’t even get a first chance.”
“I’ve gotten second chances in my career,” he added. “I’ve gotten second chances as a human being. Life is hard, and we’re always going to fail, and hopefully we learn from those failures.”
“The one thing you need to take advantage of the opportunities that come with that growth is a second chance. I’ve certainly tried to take advantage of that,” he said.
Previously, Affleck spoke about the end of his previous engagement in 2003. “I think the mistake that Jen and I made was that we fell in love, we were excited and maybe a little too accessible,” he said on the British TV series ‘Live’ in 2008. “I don’t think either of us anticipated the extent to which it would take on a different world of its own.”
