Jennifer Garner shares rare insight into her marriage to Ben Affleck

Jennifer Garner has issued rare comments on her marriage to Ben Affleck - specifically one ‘incredible’ trip she went on with their children.

The former Hollywood couple, both 54, were married from 2005 to 2018 and share three kids together - Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 14.

Speaking on Happy Hour with Ina Garten last week, the 13 Going on 30 star recalled: “When my kids were really little, I went to Paris because Ben was shooting some Batman-ish movie in London, and we went for six weeks.

“I took them out of school. It was the last time I really took the kids out of school, but it was wonderful. It was so incredible.”

She told Garten: “Part of that is that we bopped around. We went to Venice, we went to Paris; that was their first real experience. And they were little. My little one was four.

“So, I mean, he was wrapped up in that beautiful purple scarf. I sent you all these pictures, and you told me to go down the Seine in a boat, and I’ve done it now every time I go.”

Garner opened up on a trip she took her children on during her marriage (Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

Garner gushed: “Every picture from that night, from that trip, the smile on my kids’ faces - it was such an adventure that you gave us.”

The duo have been candid about their co-parenting relationship, with Affleck previously explaining in an October interview with Variety: “I work hard, and then I go home and pick up the kids from school. We have dinner if they agree to hang out with me. They’re with me for a week, then with their mom for a week.”

The Gone Girl star added: They have a great thing with their mom, for whom I’m also really, really grateful.

“I know things will come up that are hard, and I don’t want to jinx that, but this time in my life as a human being is really wonderful.”

The former couple tied the knot in a private Turks and Caicos wedding ceremony in June 2005, after they started dating the August prior, having first met on the set of Pearl Harbour in 2001.

After their split, they’ve always maintained a strong co-parenting relationship, and Affleck previously credited his ex-wife for having supported him through his struggles with alcoholism following their divorce, after she was spotted dropping him off at a rehabilitation facility in 2018.

The duo were married for a decade (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Recalling how hard the 2015 breakup was in an interview with Marie Claire in January, she admitted: “You have to be smart about what you can and can’t handle, and I could not handle what was out there. But what was out there was not what was hard. 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.”

Speaking out about parenting teens, she added: “Parenting now has shifted. It’s more about parenting with a button on my mouth…. You have to let them grow up and make their choices. You don’t get to control it.”

Garner said she’s ‘so proud of how they walk through the world, and proud of them for trying hard’.