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Affleck says he felt ‘trapped’ married to Garner

Ben Affleck has revealed he felt “trapped” in his 10-year marriage to actress Jennifer Garner, admitting he turned to alcohol to cope.

The Batman star spoke about his marriage and drinking problem on The Howard Stern Show this week, discussing his 2017 divorce from Garner.

“Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped,” Affleck said of his relationship with the mother of his three children.

“I was like, ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ And what I did was [I] drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”

Affleck said, the couple, who married in 2005, realised they did not want their relationship to “be the model that our kids see of marriage”.

“We probably would’ve ended up at each other’s throats. I probably still would’ve been drinking,” Affleck said.

In 2018, Affleck went into rehab for his issues with alcohol.

“The truth was we took our time, we made the decision, we grew apart. We had a marriage that didn’t work,” Affleck told Stern.

“I knew she was a good mum, and I hoped she knew I was a good dad. I had to get sober, and I acknowledge that.”

But Affleck’s decision to dump on Garner has drawn fire on social media.

“Has Jennifer Garner not suffered enough with his appalling behaviour? She has shown nothing but dignity while he has behaved like a horny teenager,” one furious Twitter user wrote.

 

The Oscar winner also told Stern his split from Garner was less dramatic than media outlets made it out to be at the time.

“We did it amicably. We did our best. Did we have moments of tension? Did we have disagreements over custody? Was stuff difficult for us? Did we get angry? Yes, but fundamentally it was always underpinned with a respect,” he said.

Affleck said he was worried most about the damage from his addiction to his relationships with his children, which helped him get sober.

“The cure for addiction is suffering, you suffer enough, that something inside you goes, ‘I’m done,'” he said.

“I’m lucky because I hit that point before I lost the things that were most important. Not my career or money – it was my relationship with my kids, and when I felt as if it impacted them, I recognised it.”

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