Jennifer Garner makes rare admission about 'hard' Ben Affleck split

They might have called it a day over a decade ago, but Jennifer Garner still sees her divorce from Ben Affleck as the 'hardest' period of her life.

For those in need of a reminder, the 13 Going on 30 actress tied the knot with Affleck in a private Turks and Caicos wedding ceremony in June 2005. They'd started dating the August prior, having first met on the set of Pearl Harbour in 2001, and later working together again in 2003's Daredevil.

In the years that followed, the big-name Hollywood duo welcomed three children together: daughters Violet, 20, and Seraphina, 17, and son Samuel, 13.

Despite going their separate ways in 2015 after jointly filing for divorce, the former couple have long maintained a solid co-parenting relationship.

Affleck, 53, has also credited his ex-wife for having supported him through his struggles with alcoholism following their divorce, after she was spotted dropping the movie producer off at a rehabilitation facility in 2018.

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck were married for 10 years (Pascal Le Segretain/Staff/Getty Images)

Following Affleck's divorce from musician Jennifer Lopez last year, for example, the Gone Girl actor was seen spending Thanksgiving weekend with Garner, also 53. They also worked alongside the homeless shelter, The Midnight Mission, around the same time to feed the unhoused community in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles.

Sadly for their fans, however, it doesn't look as though the former flames are set to rekindle their romance any time soon, with Garner recently opening up about the impact the split had on her family in a rare admission.

Speaking to Marie Claire this week, the mother-of-three first discussed the media's coverage of their breakup, revealing why she chose to address it publicly at the time.

"It doesn’t serve me to take in gossip about myself or anyone else," Garner began. "Much less my kids, so I don’t do it. You have to be smart about what you can and can’t handle, and I could not handle what was out there."

She added, however: "But what was out there was not what was hard."

The former couple are still close friends and co-parent their children together (Brian Fluharty/Getty Images)

"The fact of it is what was hard. The actual breaking up of a family is what was hard. Losing a true partnership and friendship is what was hard."

Thankfully, however, Garner also took the opportunity to express her gratitude for the stable relationship that she and Affleck have been able to maintain, claiming she's able to co-parent their kids 'with peace and equanimity and a partnership that I didn’t know I would ever get back to'.

She continued: "I think it’s important for women to know, when they think, 'Oh, I’ll never see that, I’ll never have that feeling, I’ll never be friends with this person again'. [That] time is the opportunity.

"Time is the opportunity to heal. Time is the opportunity to forgive, to move on and to find a new way to be friends."