Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner began their Thanksgiving Day side by side, giving back. Wearing matching aprons, hairnets and gloves, the former couple spent three hours in sync, their connection easy and effortless as they helped Midnight Mission serve free meals to homeless people in downtown L.A.’s skid row community on November 28.
The organization later posted a picture of the pair on social media, praising them for “their kindness, warmth and dedication” and desire to shine a light on the true meaning of the holiday: “coming together to support one another.”
Lately, they’ve been doing a lot of that themselves. Post-volunteering, the Oscar winner joined the Deadpool & Wolverine actress and their children — Violet, 19, Fin, 15, and Samuel, 12 — for a home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner at Jen’s place.
In recent months, the exes have also spent time together vacationing in Japan during the kids’ summer break, celebrating Ben’s 52nd birthday, and dropping Violet off at Yale University to begin her freshman year of college. In June, Jen was even seen letting herself into Ben’s new home after he moved out of the mansion he shared with his second wife, Jennifer Lopez, 55, following their April separation.
“Ben and Jen are closer than ever,” a source exclusively tells Life & Style. “They’ve developed a mutual respect and a deeper level of friendship they didn’t have before. It has some friends asking if they could be on their way to getting back together.”
Ben Affleck’s Healing Journey
A lot has happened since they broke up in 2015 and finalized their divorce in 2018. Ben, who’s struggled with alcohol addiction for decades, “got the help he needed, got sober, remarried and is now getting divorced again,” recaps the source. “He’s done a lot of work on himself, and he’s a much better man for it. It’s what Jen has always hoped for him.”
Over time, Jen, 52, “has watched him evolve. She’s seen the progress and the transformation, and it’s changed how she feels about him,” says the source, adding that “it’s no secret that Ben thinks Jen was the best thing to ever happen to him.”
The actor-director confessed in 2020 that his drinking fueled problems in their relationship. Ben also admitted he felt immense “shame” because their marriage ended, calling their divorce the “biggest regret of my life.”
In the wake of their split, Jen admitted that despite the pain, she would do it all over again. “I didn’t marry the big fat movie star; I married him. And I would go back and remake that decision,” she told Vanity Fair months after they went their separate ways. “He’s the love of my life. What am I going to do about that?”
The Yes Day star eventually moved on, though. While Ben was briefly linked to his kids’ former nanny Christine Ouzounian, 37 (he’s denied their relationship was romantic), and dated a long list of women — including former Saturday Night Live producer Lindsay Shookus, 44, Playboy model Shauna Sexton, 28, and actress Ana de Armas, 36, before marrying J. Lo in 2022 — for most of the past six years, Jen’s been in a relationship with Cali Group CEO John Miller.
“John loves Jen, but they hardly rushed into a full-on commitment, likely because of Ben,” the source speculates, noting how Jen supported Ben as he worked on his sobriety and through his split from J. Lo. “I mean, if Jen and John were going to get married, they probably would have done it already.”
Jennifer Garner’s Big Risk
Jen’s eyes are wide open. The actress shared on the November 12 episode of the “Lipstick on the Rim” podcast that 86-year-old mom Pat’s advice included the warning, “Don’t marry a man thinking you can change him.”
Jen knows caring for Ben can be challenging. “He’s the most brilliant person in any room, the most charismatic, the most generous. He’s just a complicated guy,” she famously said in 2016. “I always say, ‘When his sun shines on you, you feel it.’ But when the sun is shining elsewhere, it’s cold. He can cast quite a shadow.”
Right now, their relationship is filled with warmth. After Thanksgiving, the close-knit clan celebrated Violet’s 19th birthday on December 1 before she returned to college. With Christmas around the corner, Jen’s looking forward to seeing a performance of The Nutcracker with the kids (an annual tradition she’s “drilled” into them, she confessed) and spending the season “just being together with family,” she said in a recent interview.
That includes Ben. “They have a history and a deep love for each other. They like spending time together and light up when they see each other,” says the source. “Let’s just say that Ben and Jen are in a very good place.”
