Jennifer Garner Reflects on Raising Children in ‘Separate Households’ After Ben Affleck Split

Jennifer Garner has opened up about raising her three children in “two separate households” after splitting from their father, Ben Affleck.

During an appearance on the Tuesday, February 24, episode of Bustle’s One Nightstand, Garner, 53, was asked how she finds balance as a parent.

“I think that I do a bit of both and I think my kids’ dad does too,” the Last Thing He Told Me star told host Charlotte Owen. “Especially when your kids grow up in two separate households, I become mom and dad and he becomes dad and mom.”

“You kind of can’t help it, right?” she continued. “Because you don’t have the benefit of both sides of the yin and yang being in the same house.”

The former couple — who share three children, Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 13 — were married for a decade before announcing their split in 2015.

“There’s a little bit of loss in that, but there’s also something gained in that,” the 13 Going on 30 star explained. “You also just learn. It’s made me let go and not focus so much on the bringing up.”

Despite enduring a very public divorce — reports circulated that Affleck had an affair with their then-nanny while he and Garner were married, claims he later denied — the pair have remained amicable as they raise their children together.

“You have to be smart about what you can and can’t handle, and I could not handle what was out there,” Garner told Marie Claire in January, seemingly referencing the media storm that came from their split. “But what was out there was not what was hard. The fact of it is what was hard. The actual breaking up of a family is what was hard. Losing a true partnership and friendship is what was hard.”