Ben Affleck Felt He Married Someone Above Him by Being With Jennifer Garner

Ben Affleck revealed how marrying up to someone like Jennifer Garner affected their relationship.

Ben Affleck couldn’t stop gushing about how much he admired his ex-wife Jennifer Garner at one point. And the fact that he felt Garner might’ve been a bit out of his league affected their relationship in a surprising way.

How Ben Affleck handled the idea of marrying someone above him

Affleck felt he might’ve lucked out by marrying Garner while they were together. But even back in the golden years of their marriage, Affleck asserted that his relationship wasn’t without its problems.

“Jennifer played such a profound role in making me a better person,” Affleck once told The Hollywood Reporter. “We don’t have a perfect marriage, but she inspired me; and finding myself in that marriage and having a child dovetailed with getting to be a little more mature.”

One of the reasons why Affleck thought so highly of his ex-wife was her compassion. The Gone Girl star believed that Garner held no malice towards anyone, which he admitted sometimes worked against him.

“She truly is kind,” Affleck added. “She means no one any harm. She doesn’t have ill will for any person. She’s not competitive with other people. She’s not spiteful. It’s one of those things where it becomes almost aggravating at times. Every time I go, ‘F*** him!’ I see in her face that she just thinks that’s petty and small.”

According to Contact Music, Affleck shared his belief that Garner might’ve been a better person than he was. Which was a key reason why their marriage worked as well as it did.

“There are two things for a marriage to be good. One is to work hard on it. The other one is to marry above you. And I succeeded at both of those,” he said.

Why Jennifer Garner’s kids told her that she used to be their family’s ‘only hope’

Garner and Affleck’s relationship moved at a very quick pace. They were engaged to each other after nine months of dating, and got married in June of 2005. They gave birth to their first child six months after that. Given how young they were, Garner asserted that their newfound parenthood took quite an adjustment period.

“When we had our first, we had only been together a year. We were babies. It happened so fast, I hardly even remember what we were like before the kids got here,” Garner said in a 2014 interview with InStyle (via E! News).

With the arrival of two more children, Garner and Affleck could only spend time together sparingly. Because of this, Garner chose to stay home with her family most of the time so Affleck could devote his time to his work.

“I keep things rolling and foster his connection to the kids. He’ll always make time for them—he screwed up a week of production to take our daughter to her first day of kindergarten—but there’s only so much, practically speaking, that he can do,” Garner said. “I make sure that I am facilitating the most meaning for each kid out of whatever time he has.”

Garner also commented on their different parenting styles, confiding that Affleck was seen as the funnier of the two. But the Elektra actor had her ex-husband beat when it came to movies. Garner quipped that most of Affleck’s films were too dark for them to watch at the ages they were. So the kids hoped that Garner would make movies that were more age-appropriate.

“My kids are always saying, ‘Mom, you’re our only hope. Dad does all these grown-up movies,” Garner recalled. “We can’t see Argo or Gone Girl. Batman looks too scary. You have to do things we can see.'”