‘The truth is much more quotidian than probably people would believe or would be interesting.’

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s divorce was finalised a month ago — and now, Affleck wants to clarify the reason the two ended their marriage. He recently told GQ that it’s probably not the story people are expecting.

The actor spoke to the magazine about the breakup, explaining that fans won’t find the cause of his divorce in Lopez’s documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told, where he spoke about their relationship. In fact, there was no blowout moment, he shared.

He started off by addressing the public’s interest in what happened:

‘I guess there’s a tendency to look at breakups and want to identify root causes or something. But honestly…the truth is much more quotidian than probably people would believe or would be interesting. Yeah, there’s no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue. The truth is, when you talk to somebody, “Hey, what happened?” Well, there is no: “This is what happened.” It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do. And as you get older, this is true for me, I assume it’s true for most people, there is no “So-and-so did this” or “This was the big event.” It’s really, it sounds more like a couple’s therapy session, which — you would tune out of someone else’s couple’s therapy after a while. For one thing, you start going, “Okay, clearly this person has got these issues. Clearly they have these issues.” And the reason I don’t want to share that is just sort of embarrassing. It feels vulnerable.’

Affleck had two conversations for the GQ cover. In the first chat, he spoke about participating in The Greatest Love Story Never Told, which covered the making of Lopez’s album This Is Me…Now. He began:

‘Part of it was, “Okay, if I’m going to participate in this, I want to try to do it in an honest way and in a way that’s interesting.” Because I thought it was an interesting examination. Like I mentioned to you before, there are a lot of people who I think have handled celebrity more adeptly and more adroitly than I have, Jennifer among them. My temperament is to be a little bit more reserved and private than hers. As happens in relationships, you don’t always have the same attitude towards these things. And so I thought, Oh, this is interesting because how do you reconcile that? Because exactly what you said is true. I love and support this person. I believe in them. They’re great. I want people to see that. And I think the thing that I said in that documentary or the piece that they used was where I said, You don’t marry a ship captain and then say, “Well, I don’t like going out in the water.” You’ve got to own what you knew going into any relationship. And I think it’s important to say that wasn’t the cause of some major fracture. It’s not like you can watch that documentary and go, “Oh, now I understand the issues that these two had.”‘

He added in the second conversation that he didn’t mean any disrespect to his ex-wife. ‘When you asked me about Jen and the documentary and I talked about that and my sort of personal life a little bit, which I don’t mind doing as long as my actual feelings and intentions and beliefs are communicated, which I hope I was clear that really this is somebody I have a lot of respect for,’ he stressed. ‘And I get wanting to divine or explore the kind of differences in perspective that we have in terms of how a person feels comfortable approaching the line between public and private life. But I really hope that whatever you use doesn’t suggest that I have any negativity or judgment or anything regarding that. I have nothing but respect.’

He also spoke a little about his other ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, in the piece. He praised their relationship, saying, ‘I’m really lucky that I have a really good co-parent and partner in Jennifer Garner, the kids’ mum [they share three children], who’s wonderful and great and we work together well.’