After 10 years of marriage, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are calling it quits.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The couple have released the following statement:
"After much thought and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to divorce.
"We go forward with love and friendship for one another and a commitment to co-parenting our children whose privacy we ask to be respected during this difficult time. This will be our only comment on this private family matter. Thank you for understanding."
The statement came one day after the couple's 10th wedding anniversary.
Affleck, 42, and Garner, 43, first met in 2001, on the set of epic drama Pearl Harbor. They worked together again in 2003 on Daredevil and wre first spotted as an item in 2004.
The couple were married in 2005 and have three children together, Violet, 9, Seraphina, 6, and son Samuel, 3.
"I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It's good. It is work but the best kind of work and there's no one I'd rather work with," Affleck said while accepting the Oscar for Argo in 2013. "You have to work harder than you think you possibly can. It's hard. But you can't hold grudges. And it doesn't matter if you get knocked down in life. All that matters is that you gotta get back up."
Responding to the speech, Garner told the Telegraph: "I know Ben, I knew he meant it as the hugest, warmest compliment in the world. I think he was saying, 'Look, what we have is really real and I value it above all and I'm in it with you and I know you are in it with me.' That's the way I took it."
In a separate, earlier interview, Garner told Marie Claire: "I don't know what makes it work. But it does," she said of their relationship.
"One thing that makes it work is that we're both pretty nice. He's not someone who's ever going to blow up on anyone. What I mean is, if he's ever angry with me, he doesn't act out on it in a weird way or yell at me. And I am the same. So we handle conflict in a very loving and adult way."
The couple were last seen together on the red carpet in November last year and rumours of a split have been circling for much of this year.
TMZ is reporting that the split is amicable and the couple will share joint custody of their children.
Fairfax Media