Amid Ben Affleck’s divorce from Jennifer Lopez, internet users have uncovered a 1999 Playboy interview in which he discussed the demise of his relationships.
As I’m sure you’re aware by now, J.Lo filed for divorce from Ben on Aug. 20 — two years after they tied the knot. Legal documents revealed that they’d quietly been separated since April.
This marked their second public split since they broke off their first engagement in 2004. A year later, in 2005, Ben married Jennifer Garner, though they ended up parting ways in 2015.
J.Lo and Ben have yet to publicly address their divorce, though it comes after months of speculation that they were facing issues.
For example, an insider told Entertainment Tonight in May that Ben and Jen had “had their ups and downs.” On the very same day, Jen pointedly liked an Instagram post about unhealthy relationships.
Amid the divorce, Ben’s past comments about navigating relationships have resurfaced online.
Back in 1999, Ben was asked during an interview with Playboy if any ex-girlfriends are generally “pissed off” at him. He replied, “Mostly, yeah.”
Explaining why, Ben said, “Probably justifiably so. If I were the next guy to go out with them, I'm sure I would be nodding in agreement about what an asshole their ex-boyfriend was. It's not like I was a womanizer or physically abusive or psychologically abusive or whatever. It's just that these relationships never end well.”
Ben continued, “I think what happens is, I end up wanting to be out of the relationship.”
“During the course of a relationship, if you get dissatisfied and unhappy and don't say something, if you don't deal with it right then, it just festers and stays there. So instead of saying, ‘Look, don't do that, please don't act this way,’ I go along with it until I just don't want to be in the relationship at all,” he said.
“Then I create some incident or do something or just don't call. And then she's pissed. And I can't necessarily blame her at that point since I've developed such a passive-aggressive rage that I have no sympathy and tell her, ‘Well of course I didn't call you. If you weren't such a nagging, shrewish harpy I'd call you.’ But that hopefully is something I'm growing out of,” Ben added.