Ben Affleck Blaming Jennifer Garner For His Drinking Is Toxic AF

Ben Affleck’s comments about his marriage with Jennifer Garner sounds a lot like he’s telling on himself

How can we convince Ben Affleck to stop talking out loud, for the good of both himself and others? This week he was up to it again, this time on The Howard Stern Show, making completely inappropriate comments about his former marriage to fellow actor Jennifer Garner — specifically, about how he’d still be drinking if he didn’t get divorced.

“I’d probably still be drinking. It’s part of why I started drinking. Because I was trapped,” he says. “I was like, I can’t leave ’cause of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do? What I did was drink a bottle of scotch and fall asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”

Let us know when you’re done cringing.

Okay.

So, first and foremost, you would think that anyone who’s been to rehab a couple of times knows that blaming your addiction issues on others is not super helpful — and that blaming your drinking on outside causes is a pretty good red flag for alcoholism.

Secondly, Jennifer Garner is a gift to humanity and we cannot even begin to fathom what she put up with during (and after) her marriage to Ben, except that it included stuff like him drinking scotch on the couch all day, an alleged affair with the nanny, and her driving him to rehab three years after their separation.

What we’re saying here is: it sounds like there was one mature and responsible adult in the marriage at that time and it was not Ben Affleck.

The couple, both 49, were married in 2005 and separated in 2015. They have three children together: Violet, 16, Seraphina, 12, and Samuel, 9.

Affleck continued the interview by clarifying that he was miserable because they grew apart — and that they tried to work on things. Although he doesn’t really own up to how his behavior was likely a contributing factor.

“The truth was, we took our time, we made the decision,” he says. “We grew apart. We had a marriage that didn’t work, this happens, with somebody that I love and respect, but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer. Ultimately, we tried. We tried, we tried because we had kids. Both of us felt like we don’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.”

We wish we knew Garner’s thoughts on this, but she has been consistently dedicated to having a successful co-parenting relationship with Affleck.

“Did we have moments of tension? Did we have disagreements over the custody? Was stuff difficult for us? Did we get angry? Yes,” he continues. “But fundamentally it was always underpinned with respect. I knew she was a good mom. I hope that she knew that I was a good dad.”

How you can be a good dad while asleep drunk on the couch we are not sure. But we hope that his sobriety and the divorce has given him an opportunity to be better.

Of course the internet was not having any of this talk from Ben.

We especially love this guy, who dug up Garner’s perspective from a past interview.

You are not the ashes, Jen! And he is not a phoenix.